Augie March - King of Doodles: Life with Waterfowl

Cruelty-Free Feather Earrings in Beautiful Blue

2011-07-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

Hand dyed, naturally molted, cruelty-free
goose feather earrings from ursusarctosana on Etsy.com

The flock and I have an Etsy.com store called The Lucy Goose listed under username ursusarctosana where we've been selling our feather earrings and hair accessories for about a year and a half to help cover costs of veterinary care, food, and bedding for the ducks and geese. In early spring Lucy and Wee-Woo molted a ton of white feathers that I have been holding onto. After cleaning them thoroughly in the hottest water and a mild, bio-degradable detergent, they've been dried and packed into bags. Yesterday I had a brain fart and thought, "Why don't I dye some of these white feathers with stuff I can find around the house?"

Big wire wrapped feather earrings.

I was able to dye pink, blue, yellow, and a light caramel (rattan) color with various leftovers and food items. I will tell you that I used some coffee grounds, masala curry, and a drop of leftover punk rock hair color, but the rest is a secret. I know that many feather earrings are made with pre-dyed feathers that earring makers order from suppliers, but our dyed feathers are different. I'm now on a mission to try new things and since we're now receiving feathers from a couple of wonderful waterfowl sanctuaries across the country, there will be more opportunity to work with white goose and duck feathers and natural dyes.
Here are a few of the earrings I made today using the new dye technique. Some of the ear wires I've hand hammered using 20g sterling silver or red brass wire. Enjoy! And make sure to visit The Lucy Goose (ursusarctosana) on Etsy. To see our shop you can click HERE!

Cruelty-free feather earrings using dyed goose feathers, duck feathers, and wild turkey feathers (naturally molted). Ear wires are hand hammered.

Late June 2011 Duck and Goose Photos

2011-06-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Augie has an itch.

Noi.

There's a spiderling by your face, Beetle.

Bella foraging in the grass.

Ming, is this really a good place to be?

Ming says it's too hot for hims.

Lucy dozes off.

Wee-Woo my Embden gander.

Ms. Sofiya sleeping.

A sleeping Olga.

Further Remodel of Duck Area

2011-06-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

Dot-Dot

Since two years ago the entire duck management system here has changed. For one thing we went from a dirt floor in the pen to 1" river rock covered by 36" X 36" rubber anti-fatigue mats, which was excellent for the waterfowls' sensitive feet, but because of the slope of our property, it didn't drain well and wasn't feasible for the yard we're working with. A well-know waterfowl rescue on the east coast had a biologist come in and facilitate adequate drainage through a system of canals throughout the property. Our property isn't nearly large enough for this kind of system.

The former duck pen is being covered in substrate (wood chips and dirt) and new grass is being planted little by little. Half of the yard has also been sectioned off and grass seed spread, because waterfowl are hard on grass. We realize this will be a constant chore.

Overnight the ducks and geese are separated into three indoor stalls, one for the muscovies, one for the geese, and one for the rest of the duck flock. The floor is concrete, but covered in thick plastic (large sheeting) and fresh pine shavings are put in frequently. We rake the older bedding forward to move it out and start with new bedding toward the back of the building. I'm guessing the building is about 20' X 12' and the size of a typical one car garage.

Mary and Chai taking a nap in the shade.

During the day the waterfowl have run of the yard and we're planting and landscaping with species of plants that will not be harmful to them. So far we only have a lilac bush and a lavender plant. We're placing brick beneath the plum tree, an extension of the brick patio that begins near the house, so there will be less mud in the pool area.

That's all the news for now. I will follow up with a photograph when it gets somewhere. ;)

Plants Toxic (And Safe) to Pet Ducks and Geese

2011-06-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

*Please be informed that these lists (or any lists) are NOT to be considered comprehensive, meaning not every toxic plant is listed, because it is unreasonable to expect that every single plant toxic to waterfowl has been recorded by humans. Also, the lists of edible plants may be missing many plants ducks and geese CAN eat.*

I've collected a list of links that include plants toxic to our pet ducks and geese (and other poultry. One of the biggest risks with poisonous plants is when raising goslings, though any others may be affected.

There is no evidence that butterfly bush is toxic to animals (ASPCA reference click here), though the ASPCA suggests any nontoxic plant may still cause tummy upset.

Foxglove is so toxic for them that they can die from drinking water run-off from potted plants. A few others are Lily of the Valley, Coffee Beans, Chocolates, Avocado, Eggplant leaves and stems, Elephant's Ears, Milkweed, Oak (all parts), Potatoes (stems, plants, green vegetables), Tomato (stems, leaves, sprouts), Onions, Mushrooms, Apple Seeds, Dried Beans, Salt, Caffeine, Alcohol,

Poultry Help - Toxic Plants
British Waterfowl Society - Plants for Ponds and Pens
About the Poisonous Castor Bean Plant
The Poultry Club of Great Britain - Poisonous Plants and Toxins
Bird Safety - Poisonous and Safe Plants for Birds
The University of Kentucky - Plants Poisonous to Pasture (Free-Range) Poultry
Poultry Community List
Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks (Poisons Page)
Parrot and Conure World List of Toxic Plants (long list)

Photos of the Dearly Departed Mista Clyde

2011-06-10T10:10:00.001-07:00

Noi flirts with Mista Clyde; he was never lacking in attention from the beauties.

Clyde and Mary. I hadn't particularly noticed this until looking back over photos and seeing how Mary responded at Clyde's viewing (after his death), but I think Mary was his number one girl. She ran up to his body, quacking.

Beautiful Clyde and his drake feather.

Look under those healthy, beautiful wings.

Such a sweet, gentle boy he was.

Always saying hello.

Ming and Clyde: Inseparable.

The search is on for bugs in the mint.

Half mallard, half black Indian runner. Beautiful Clyde.

Sometimes trying to be feisty, however gently so.

What's in here?

Reds, blacks, browns, greens...whites, gorgeous!

Hello!

Hello again my shiny, shiny green boy!

Holding Mista Handsome.

When I first saw these little feet come out of the egg shell when he hatched...I will never forget.

Winter morning.

Winter sunshine.

Mud-lover.

Happiness is...

...a muddy Clyde.

He and Lucy collaborate...

...to get my hair.

Baby Clyde.

Clyde, Lucy, and Ming over two years ago.

Where did you go? It's a big world out here.

Resting.

Watching television with Dad.

Happy camper, indeed.

Goodbye my sweet and friendly fellow, goodbye.

Signs of Intestinal Blockage in Pet Ducks

2011-06-03T21:58:00.000-07:00

This entry is based on personal experience. Always consult your veterinarian when you suspect your pet is ill.

After losing my sweet boy Clyde to a burst intestine this week, I have gained insight regarding what to watch for in cases like his where intestinal blockage leads to intestinal rupture.

Clyde's first symptoms were lethargy, hunched back, lack of appetite.

The second to last day of Clyde's life--notice the hunched posture.

Clyde's normal posture. (He is half mallard/half Indian runner.)

Observe your duck closely for a hunched up look. It's best to keep your duck isolated from the others, if you have others, and/or in the house inside a crate, because it is easy to confuse your duck's fecal matter with that of another duck, or to think he/she is pooping when he/she's not. Examine any fecal matter your duck is passing.

Clyde's fecal matter was white--uric acid--and did not contain any solid food like the normal duck stool produced when eating normal amounts of crumble or grass.

Some of Clyde's poop contained small bits of greens. Tiny bits. When he pooped it looked like this:

Notice that it's all fluid except for a small, thin drop.

Think of the intestines as the passageway that they are. What if there's an obstruction? It could be a rock, plastic, string, metal, or even organic material as was Clyde's case. If there is an obstruction, chances are not much, if any, digested matter can pass through the bowels and be evacuated. If it is evacuated it is reasonable that it would be "squeezed" into tiny bits like that shown above. Also note the white uric acid drop to the left in the photo. When I first brought him inside, Clyde was producing a lot of this white fluid.

Excessive thirst. At first, when I brought him inside, Clyde kept "licking his lips" so-to-speak. He'd move his bill as if his mouth was dry. I checked inside his mouth for sores and in his throat for obstruction.

I gave Clyde electrolytes. I took him to the vet for an x-ray and the vet thought his gonads were a mass. (This vet was not aware of the gonads increasing so much in size during the breeding season.)

Finally, in an attempt to get his appetite up, I bought some mealworms. I'd had several people suggest I tube feed him, but I felt it was against my better judgment based on what I was seeing. I had a fear that I would be pushing something on him that would make him more uncomfortable. Luckily, I didn't tube feed or he would have suffered horrendously in this case.

Clyde ate crickets and mealworms. Then he felt better and became talkative and social with my hen CoCo, who was inside to rest her bum hip. He wanted to go outside and called out to the flock and they answered boisterously.

So he had a little energy, but he wasn't 100%. There was no discharge from the eyes, nose, or mouth.

In hindsight I remember Clyde's body being hunched the first day I noted he seemed "not himself" and a slight bending or pushing motion he was making with his rear/tail area.

Clyde wanted to feel better. I could tell it was something not as serious as it had to be (had it been caught early on). I would have expected different behavior from parasites, intestinal virus/bacteria, cancer, or other disease. Clyde's feathers were healthy. He was trying to eat, but something was causing discomfort.

If your duck has the following symptoms, don't force feed or encourage eating until you've seen a veterinarian and had either an ultrasound or exploratory surgery if all other causes are ruled out:

*Hunched appearance (not ruffled feathers--that is different)
*White uric acid or clear water diarrhea
*Poop that is skinny like spaghetti noodles or in tiny pieces like it squeezed through a smaller-than-normal intestine
*Perking up at mealworms, etc.
*Excessive thirst
*Lip smacking, swallowing as if something caught in throat--the same way a person does when they have dry mouth--not gulping or anything like that--just acting like the mouth is dry
*Moodiness--nudging flock members away with bill or biting you or other birds when they approach
*Not eating regular foodstuff, but wanting to eat, especially if mealworms or crickets are presented
*Sometimes drinking, but not swallowing--just letting the fluid run back out of the bill and into the water dish
*Mimicking the action of eating, but not really eating--dipping bill in crumble and then dipping bill in water, but not really swallowing (the desire to eat, but the inability to eat due to being full from the obstruction)
*Weight loss (compare photos from the same time the previous year, if you have them. If not, monitor your duck's weight.)

WHAT YOU CAN DO IF YOU SUSPECT INTESTINAL OBSTRUCTION:

*Give mineral oil to attempt to lubricate and loosen the object
*Give electrolytes and vitamin water (available at the feed or pet store)
*Do not feed, except in tiny amounts like a cricket or two
*Have a blood test to rule out metal poisoning and parasites
*AVOID GIVING GRIT OR TUBE FEEDING
*Let your duck sit in a warm tub
*Request an ultrasound

Once the intestines have burst there isn't anything that can be done--at least that's what I was told. The harmful intestinal juices leak into the body cavity and cause infection. If your duck's intestines have burst you may hear him/her repeating a small grunting sound, especially if you feel the soft belly area between the legs. This is where the discomfort will probably be. Get to the vet as soon as possible. If the intestines have burst or there is a case of peritonitis, the feces will have a strong, infection-like, and fetid odor.

Mista Clyde Doodle: April 1, 2009 - May 31, 2011

2011-06-03T21:11:00.000-07:00

Clyde on his last day with the flock

My poor precious boy. He was misdiagnosed. The vet thought his gonads were a mass. But if you look in the previous post you will see that his poop was water with the thinnest worm of solids in it. This is indicative of intestinal obstruction. Yes, Clyde's liver functions were low and he was a bit anemic, but he had good days and bad days, though not anything like I would expect of cancer. At first I thought there was little I could do and Clyde started to get better and better. He went outside and played, called out to his flock through the window, and enjoyed giant mealworms. Then he rested for a day.

The next morning Clyde was perked up and calling to the flock again. When I let him out of the crate his orange and black webbed feet padded across the hardwood toward the flock's calls coming through the open kitchen window. He was ready to go outside, so out we went.

It was Monday, Memorial Day, May 30th and the sun was shining. I watched Clyde's interactions with the flock and photographed them. Clyde mated, went for a swim, and gulped down a lot of crumble. It was a sure sign, I thought, that he was over the hump. He was better. I was hopeful.

Ming (foreground) and Olga (background) keep one eye on the sky as Clyde (middle) floats in the pool.

But after a couple of hours Clyde began to slow down and I decided it was time for him to go in and rest. He was hanging out alone, away from the rest of the flock, and it appeared the old fatigue had caught up with him again. I kept thinking about what the vet said about how Clyde was so young and it was unusual for ducks to get cancer that young (Clyde was only two years old.)

Clyde preening after floating in the pool.

Once back in his crate in the house, Clyde first looked around curiously for mealworms. I still thought it was a good sign that he was getting better. I've had several ducks who stopped eating and were treated with antibiotics and became better and their symptoms weren't too different from Clyde's. Unfortunately, I didn't notice the right signs, nor push my theory at the vet's office.

Augie follows Mista Clyde closely. Augie and Clyde were raised together. Clyde, Ming, and Augie I referred to as "The Three Stooges". This was the last time Augie would see Clyde alive.

That night I went to pick up a friend and then we had dinner, relaxed, talked. I changed Clyde's water, noticed he was lethargic, seemed really tired. I was worried. I kept checking on him and late at night saw that he was grunting. I thought back to how he had very subtly arched his tail toward the ground sometimes. I had told the vet, on the first visit, I believed it was highly likely that Clyde could have swallowed something. X-rays were taken. Of course if it wasn't metal or a large rock it wouldn't show up. I called emergency clinics. All they said they could do was euthanize him, so I had to wait until morning to call the veterinarian and, luckily, got in to see the vet I had wanted to see the first time.

Clyde had gone downhill so fast from just the day before when he seemed on the mend. That morning his feces had a bad smell it hadn't had before. At the vet's office we talked about the possibilities and I told the vet I was convinced Clyde had an obstruction and I wanted the vet to perform surgery. I signed a consent form to allow the vet to euthanize him if the problem was untreatable. Clyde was scheduled for first thing in the morning.

But the vet called back that evening and said he would operate on Clyde right then and call me in an hour. When the call came my heart leapt and an icy chill ran the length from my heart to my fingertips. I knew Clyde hadn't made it. The vet explained that when he opened him up he found an intestinal obstruction, a mat of organic matter, some sort of root, that had lodged in his intestine. Then, the vet said when he investigated further he found a blow-out in Clyde's intestines and intestinal fluids had leaked into his body cavity and he had acute peritonitis. Furthermore, Clyde's liver was covered in white lesions. The vet advised me to take fecal samples of several birds, mix them together, and bring them in for testing.

The next day I drove to the vet's office to retrieve Clyde's frozen body and drop of the fecal sample for testing. I felt strange driving home with Clyde's body wrapped in a sterile pad and closed with duct tape that said in Spanish "Vaya Con Dios, Clyde!" Where did my little guy go? How could he be here and then be gone forever? I was glad he wasn't suffering anymore, but I felt I could have done more.

I will write two more posts about this matter. One will be about signs and symptoms to watch for with intestinal obstruction. The other will be about how I handle a death within the flock when it comes to the remaining ducks who are still alive.

The fecal tests were negative. My flock does not have internal parasites. Clyde's lesions could have been caused by the poison in his body from struggling with the blockage.

Clyde and CoCo "The Bean Doodle": Hospital Food

2011-05-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

Clyde has been sick for a few days and there's a lot of controversy about his diagnosis as x-rays from friends show how large a drake's testes, which are internal and near the kidneys, can be during mating season (which it is), yet the veterinarian is saying he has a large cancer-like mass. Either way, Clyde appears to feel a bit better today. Per the suggestion of my friend M., Clyde and CoCo had crickets for lunch.

Mr. Clyde must be feeling better as he's perusing the hospital library for some literature.

Clyde and CoCo head for the lunch line at the hospital cafeteria.

What's for lunch today? It's a secret menu.

CoCo wastes no time!

Crickets! Our favorite!

Hurry, before that one gets away!

Trust us, we didn't make this mess!

That was good, says Mista Clyde. Really hit the spot.

CoCo investigates Clyde's hospital room. Hmm, what's this? she asks.

Clyde thanks M. for suggesting that crickets be on the hospital menu. He decided to move into a double room and is now not as grumpy as he was yesterday. He and his roommate CoCo are resting quietly, dabbling in bok choy green soup.

Unfortunately, Clyde hasn't produced a normal poop yet. But he's eating, which is a good sign.

Mista Clyde, Please Get Well. I Love You!

2011-05-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning my sweet Mista Clyde was running around as usual, but in the afternoon he stood on the other side of the pool, eyeing my friend and I as we talked. Next, he tried to get into the pool with some difficulty, finally made it in, only to float there, not going after the girl Iliya was on a date with as he usually would. I noticed he had significant trouble exiting the pool, so decided to check him over. He appeared a bit hunched, lethargic. I felt along all of his wing and leg bones, his back and breast, for any signs of broken bones or injury. Nothing! I let him go again to watch how he walked. He made a slow, ambling b-line across the yard to a far corner and stood by himself, facing the six foot wooden fence. Olga approached him flirtatiously, her head bobbing, but he nuzzled her away with his bill.

I decided to take him in the house. He was pooping only the white slime, the uric acid content, and no solid food. Shortly after I called the vet.

On the way to the vet, Clyde looked out the window, but he also stayed calm, nearly cuddling with me, now and then nuzzling his bill beneath my chin. He wasn't himself. The vet drew blood and took x-rays. He hung the x-rays on the backlit panel on the wall and said there were no obstructions; however, if Clyde had swallowed a piece of rubber it would not show up. Then he pointed to a fuzzy area in the center of Clyde's body in the area of the liver and said it appeared to be a large mass.

We took Clyde home last night without a firm answer and received a call today from the vet who said the blood results were not too abnormal, except for slightly lowered liver functions and a bit of anemia. Normal liver functions, he said, were 42, but Clyde's measurement was 40. He said this wasn't significant.

All afternoon Clyde has been grumpy, so I considered that perhaps he felt better and took him outside to enjoy the sunshine, which he seemed to enjoy. He stood around, peered down at the ground, shuffled some grass stems with his bill, looked up at the sky. My poor Mista Clyde!

After a while I went inside, but returned to the window where I could peek out to observe Clyde without his knowing. He remained standing around. He never went to the food bin, even though he'd walked by it when I was outside and he hasn't eaten chow for a day and a half. Finally, I brought him back inside and put him back in the cage with some water containing electrolytes and vitamins.

He stood panting lightly, sometimes stretching his head (not his neck) a little bit and swallowing, then taking a small sip of the water. A tear rolled down my cheek as I watched him, at one point, come out of the cage and call out to his friends outside. Sofiya, a Pekin, answered back and soon a chorus of hen quacks bounded across sound waves through the open window. Clyde stood erect saying, "Waaaaack! Waaaaaaack! Waaaaaaack!"

Every time I see this burst of energy I have hope. He did it again right before I came to write this, so I mixed chow with water and encouraged him to eat. To my surprise he started eating--dabbling in the wet mix and alternating with sips of water and shredded greens.

I am guilty of grasping to a thread of hope that he will spring out of this, my Mista Clyde. He's a beautiful drake, only two years old, half mallard/half Indian runner. And I don't want to guilt trip myself thinking I may have done something to cause his illness. The questions do run through my mind, though, questions like, What if he has liver failure from eating too much oyster shell? I read somewhere that drakes can suffer liver failure from too much oyster shell, but, at the time, I weighed the options because the hens need the calcium and I figured if I put the oyster shell in a separate container they could help themselves to what they need. Maybe this was poor judgment on my part.

The vets say Clyde appears to have a mass on his x-ray and they will call back tomorrow, after doing some research, to let me know a game plan. It's up in the air right now. I don't know if there's anything that can be done for my sweet boy Mista Clyde. I don't want him to suffer. Of course I want him to live. This illness, whatever it is, struck so suddenly--within a day he was feeling unwell.

This breaks my heart.

Cruelty-Free Feather Earrings and Hair Accessories (Barrettes, Clips, Etc.)

2011-05-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

In 2009 I began an Etsy shop. I'd been making purchases off of Etsy for a while and already had the username ursusarctosana, but decided to call my store "The Lucy Goose" after my goose Lucy, of course. She was, after, the CEO and listed as such on the business cards.

I had begun stockpiling beads and making earrings from charms and semi-precious stones. I don't remember why I decided to do this, but it seemed more of a whim, perhaps to distract me from what I may have considered more important creative endeavors. Nonetheless, The Lucy Goose, over time, proved that feather earrings were more successful than the bead earrings, though these still sold sometimes. Furthermore, I realized I had a niche, because other feather earring shops used dyed, commercial feathers purchased (probably wholesale) from places we all know are not cruelty-free, but selling remnants of factory farms and/or goose down and fly-tying suppliers.

At one point I attempted to join an Etsy group that was cruelty-free, but was rejected because feather earrings contain feathers, which, according to some definitions, are not entirely cruelty-free because the very act of owning a feather may encourage other people to kill a bird in order to get a similar feather. My philosophy is a different. I think people will get what they want no matter what. That's why there's poaching and why the more rare an animal, the more money, the more prized it is to obtain and sell. For people who want feather earrings, etc., from a source that is kind to animals, I offer just that!

The feathers I used are naturally molted from my pet ducks and geese--all of the ones you will find here on my blog in videos, photos and writing. They are my babies as I've raised most of them from ducklings/goslings, raised them as best I could as a human pretending to be a mother waterfowl. They each have names and personalities. They receive veterinary care and personalized attention when they are ill. I will do whatever I have to do, whatever I can, to make sure they are content and safe.

I find I get a lot of first-time buyers on Etsy, people who haven't purchased anything before and their first purchase is a pair of cruelty-free feather earrings from my shop. This happens often and I am pleased that they were inspired enough and committed enough to choose my cruelty-free designs. Since I use only feathers from my own pets, and feathers from the organic Running Bug Farm, I have limited supply. I am unable to post a pair of elaborate earrings containing a mix of exotic feathers and state that they are "made to order". Each pair of earrings I make is special, one-of-a-kind, or OOAK, as it is referred to on Etsy.

Proceeds from the sale of these earrings are cycled back through to care for the flock. The ducks must be fed, supplies must be bought, veterinary bills paid, etc. One day, perhaps, it will evolve into an actual business, but for now it is not self-sustaining. I will continue the commitment to cruelty-free feather earrings and accessories, because I believe there ought to be an alternative.

Define Animal Friendships: Two Years of Careful Observation

2011-05-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

Over the past two years I have studied, carefully, the interactions within my waterfowl flock. From the time my birds were hatchlings until now, I have sat almost daily for spans of up to five hours, observing, photographing, and videotaping my ducks and geese. Then I've spent countless hours going over these photos and videos, examining and editing, compiling clips into videos that highlight some of the behaviors I've observed. However, most of this editing has produced videos meant to entertain: funny, interesting, quirky. But there is something much more serious to explore and explain as a result of what can be considered no less than deep research.

Forget labs and university studies for a moment. I read, often, about studies conducted in such controlled environments where, for example, chimps are shown a miniature (doll-sized) locker and a tiny soda is placed in the locker and then the chimps are lead to a large room with a life-sized locker and expected to infer that the soda they saw represented in miniature is inside the real locker. Let's step back a minute. Whose environment is this anyway? Who drinks soda? Who needs a locker? Do chimps in the wild store their personal items in lockers? Do they, in fact, have a need for lockers? No. This leaves the question of how reasonable it is to expect a chimp to infer that the representation of a soda pop, that playing "dolls", being placed in a tiny metal box means that in the next room there is a big metal box with a real soda inside. I find this to be "out of context". Yes, my brain can figure this out, but why should I expect that a chimp can and why is it so important that a chimp can figure this out when a chimp has no need for soda or lockers?

Let's look at this from a different perspective. Say the chimps are the researchers and they've placed a human in a tree in the middle of a jungle. The purpose of the study is to see how smart the human is according to chimp standards. We have to ask, What are chimp standards? Why is this important? It is important if a) the human is to survive in a chimp environment, and b) the chimp is using this measure of intelligence to determine how humanely humans should be treated.

In this case the human in question is a random member of society, someone who visits a salon every six weeks, drives a nice car, dry cleans their clothes, and possibly someone who doesn't like to have their things get dirty. The individual is up in a tree, naked, without any of the things a modern human being uses on a daily basis. For days, perhaps weeks, the chimps on the other side of a one-way mirror observe the human in its struggle to survive. Is this human equipped to deal with predators, rain, and finding food? I have to say, and surely you will admit, that the human is ill-equipped. While resourceful, the average human has no need to survive in such environments as the chimp has no need for a soda and locker.

Another study I read about, done by some university students, tested how chickens feel about being in crowded, factory farm conditions. How did they test this? Inside a room. In fact, as I recall, the room was occupied, like an apartment, completely furnished and the chickens were released. In this unfamiliar place the chickens crowded together, huddling, and this caused the researchers to determine that chickens don't mind being in crowded conditions, because they naturally flock together.

Nothing could be further from the truth. If a group of humans are dumped into an alien environment one can be reasonably certain--meaning probably these humans will huddle together as in most chickens will do the same, but not always--that the humans will be on guard and stay together because they are wary or scared. This seems an obvious and natural response for most species. I find it lacking in so many ways if it is used as an answer to whether or not chickens can tolerate crowded conditions. It doesn't take much reasoning to see the flaws in this study.

Now, after presenting these ideas I will explain what I have discovered about animal friendships. We humans can easily observe our pets playing, eating side-by-side, sleeping curled up together to keep warm, and otherwise interacting and we can call these interactions "friendships". But are they friendships in the way we impart meaning to friendships? Before we jump to the next roadblock and claim anthropomorphism, we have to look at why we claim some friendships are more important than others. How, I ask, is it more important that one human is friends with another human when measured against one dog being friends with another dog? If a deeper meaning is found, one that satisfies our human need to judge another species based on our own criteria is discovered, isn't this enough to admit animals are sentient beings "just like us", or is it that we do not wish to admit this, because it requires re-examination of societal norms right down to how we raise animals and what we eat, wear, produce, etc.?

First I will tell you that, after two years of careful observation, each one of my ducks and geese has likes, dislikes, and a distinct personality. Some are socially attached due to being raised together, while others have formed friendships more deliberately. In all cases the formation of real friendships has taken time. There is hierarchy and there are disagreements. There is also a clear distinction between species, even though my goose was raised with three male ducks called drakes. Once I raised a little gander (male goose) my female goose slowly became attached to him and now she considers herself a goose.

But this is not clear cut as I one of the three drakes became attached to Lucy the goose. Even though she's been with her goose mate for over nine months now, the little Indian runner drake Ming identifies with her. Ming has demonstrated behavior differences throughout his life and there aren't any duck hens who ever solicit Ming for mating. Ming consistently sneaks up on the hens and frightens them by pouncing on their backs for no other reason than to scare them. The conclusion I've drawn is that Ming does not read or follow social cues; therefore, he is undesirable to the hens as a mating partner.

Regardless, Ming has friends. The two other drakes he was raised with have provided constant companionship and have tolerated Ming's differences. Off to a rocky start during adolescence, where his brother Clyde and the other drake, a Cayuga named Augie who I refer to as King of Doodles, would chase him down and rape him, once females were introduced and adolescence was over with, this ceased and new behaviors developed. One of these new behaviors was the routine of stepping aside employed by Augie and Clyde so that Ming could mate an unsuspecting hen. It works like this: A hen approached Augie or Clyde and begins bobbing her head, so Augie or Clyde reciprocates with a head bob and the hen flattens herself as an invitation to the drake to mount her. In the meanwhile Ming runs up on the sidelines and is positioned so that he can take over. Augie or Clyde actually completes the motion of stepping a foot onto the hen's back, but simultaneously steps aside as Ming steps on. At this point the hen realizes she's been tricked and becomes vociferous, objecting with loud quacks, but it's too late as Ming is already in position to mate. Besides chasing a hen down until she relents, this is the only way Ming has successfully mated. It is never reciprocated.

So when Ming has the opportunity to attempt mating with the goose Lucy, he is scrambling to get into the pool and mount her. She jumps out and runs away when this happens and sometimes he follows her. Now there is the gander to contend with. One would think the gander would hurt Ming, easily, but this has not been the case. I've concluded through observation that Ming is not hurt because the drakes and the geese know he is "different". This is the reason he gets away with so much that can be considered heckling. But where is the line drawn? I witnessed, yesterday, the point where tolerance gave way when Ming jumped in the pool and began trying to mount the gander after chasing Lucy, the female goose, out of the pool where she had been bathing peacefully with her mate. This is where I will demonstrate a deeper connection, the more meaningful side of friendship as displayed by animals.

Augie, the drake I call King of Doodles, Doodles being ducks, the flock, watches over everyone. Time and time again I've noticed, after going back over videos and photographs and then observing in person, that Augie is always watching everything. Earlier this week when my muscovy drake Sao-Ree attempted to rape one of the hens, Augie ran from the sidelines and beat Sao-Ree with his wings, distracting Sao-Ree so that the hen could get away. Augie is also patient. He tolerates Ming's tendency to spring on him from behind--something Ming does because it appears he does not respect the social hierarchy and/or is struggling to gain control in a flock he will never conquer. Yet, even though Augie is clearly the leader, he never harms Ming, but remains gentle with him.

Augie was watching Ming attempt to mount Lucy the other day. Lucy, of course, pushed him away with her beak, nudged him, and refused his advances and then ran away. Ming suddenly noticed that Wee-Woo, the gander, was bathing in the pool and decided to go after him. (I think Ming gets frustrated and then takes his frustration out on anyone around him as I've witnessed this numerous times.) At this point I don't think Ming distinguished which goose was in the pool, but saw it as an opportunity to fulfill his desires so-to-speak.

Once in the pool, Ming attempted to mount Wee-Woo who pushed him away. Ming was determined and that's when Wee-Woo began beating his powerful wings with the intention of ridding himself of Ming's advances. Augie had been watching the disturbance from the beginning and shot from the sidelines and into the pool--interesting since he doesn't get in the pool often--straight between Ming and Wee-Woo, providing Ming a clear path to get away, and he did. Ming exited the pool and so did Augie. It was a smooth operation and everyone ended up safe.

Augie could perceive Ming as competition, after all Ming's persistent attempts at dominating the flock are a threat to Augie's leadership, aren't they? Yet Augie treats Ming as if Ming is a weaker party, someone to pity rather than fear, and Augie comes to Ming's aid when he's in trouble--no doubt trouble he has stirred up on his own.

As humans we consider friends to be many things, but we truly value the friend who sticks up for us, who keeps us safe, and genuinely cares about our well-being. I have seen this friendship among members of my flock who are not confined within a lab or observed wandering in my undergrad apartment where I merely take notes and conclude, "Yeah, animals are dumb!"

My conclusion is that it is humans who need to take time to observe and understand for we do not see clearly the distinctions between individual animals readily, let alone read their body language adequately; therefore, how is it that we can even begin to conclude that other species are lesser than our own? Is it the same way we conclude that some people are less intelligent than others, therefore, less worthy of privilege and humane treatment? Why is there such an emphasis on perceived-intelligence rather than the basic desires, emotions, and universal differences that are just that: differences, when we judge who is expendable and who is worthy? I say we take more time and look through the different lenses in our tool bags, because it is shameful if we go on claiming we have so many tools when we are too lazy to use them.

The languages of other species, perhaps, are so complex that we humans are the ones who have failed to connect for we are not masters of this universe, but students who are still in pre-school, still learning to hold our crayons.

More of My Runner Duck Ming's Antics

2011-05-10T18:06:00.000-07:00

Toward the end of the video, Augie March, my flock leader and King of Doodles, saves Ming from a beating from Wee-Woo the goose. Ming was harassing Wee-Woo, but Augie always watches out for the weaker members of the flock.

CoCo, My Khaki Campbell, is Funny with the Mirror

2011-05-10T18:04:00.000-07:00

Summer 2010: Doodle Ducks Snoozing About

2011-05-01T19:34:00.001-07:00

Sao-Ree Dactyl: A pet muscovy duck

2011-05-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

Ming: Special Needs Duck

2011-05-01T16:31:00.001-07:00

My black Indian runner drake, Ming, is a special needs duck who has a cognitive/communication disability. Here is a video about him.

Waterfowl and the Issue of Sphincters or Do Ducks Have a Sphincter Muscle?

2011-04-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

A friend recently asked me if it is true whether or not ducks (and other birds) have a sphincter muscle. According to one source I use quite often, they do not. I also haven't known anyone who has successfully house trained a pet duck or goose. In this entry I will attempt to solve the puzzle and let you know if your duck or goose does, in fact, have a sphincter muscle. This does not mean, however, that your pet bird can be house trained.

Back in 1989 A. H. Mahdi and J. McLelland called their research "A Morphometric Study of the Rectocoprodeal Sphincter in the Domestic Duck", concluding that there is 'evidence for a sphincter" and that "in the domestic duck, a sphincter muscle, the rectroprodeal sphincter, exists close to the junction of the rectum and coprodeum. Here is a quote from their research:

The caudal part f the ctu in birds opens into the cranial compartment of the cloaca, the coprodeum. There is considerable debate as to whether or not an anatomical boundary exists at the junction of the rectum and coprodeum.

In this same study they go on to report:

Since similar morphometric observations on the innervation of sphincters have previously been made in birds (Mahdi & McLelland, 1988) and mammals (Cai & Gabella, 1984; Vaithilingam et al. 1984) these quantitative data are further support for the existence in this part of the gut of a powerful sphincter. Although the sphincter anatomically belongs entirely to the rectum, its close proximity to the coprodeum suggests that functionally it would be more appropriate to refer to it as a ‘rectocoprodeal’ sphincter.

So far I have located no further studies on this topic. My conclusion is that ducks do have a sphincter, but it operates differently from the sphincters in mammals like ourselves and this is why no one is successful at potty training ducks. If you get a pet duck, expect that it will evacuate (poop) everywhere no matter how much you try to house train it. This is one of the key factors to consider when you decide to take a duck into your home as a pet. There are resources out there to help you, particularly if you have one pet house duck. You can purchase duck diapers which you will need to change frequently.

References:

A.H. Mahdi and J. McLelland, 1989, "A Morphometric Study of the Rectocoprodeal Sphincter in the Domestic Duck", http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1256676/?page=1

New Augie March Video From Duckling Footage

2011-02-27T18:24:00.001-08:00

Music is under creative commons license and is by the artist L'eau du robinet. Song: Ma nuit chez Maud.

The Quack Squad: Iliya, Emily, Mary, Olga, Noi, Beetle, and Bella: Video

2010-08-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

The Quack Squad consists of Iliya, Emily, Mary, Olga, Noi, Beetle, and Bella. This is their lives in video. They were hatched on July 8th, 2009.

Note that when they had this bath they were inside the house, supervised, and dried with a heater that was constantly monitored.

One Week Old Eating Greens

First Trip Outdoors at Two Weeks Old

Two Weeks Old Swimming in a Plastic Sled

Catching Crickets

In the Bathtub

Relaxing in the Yard - Three and a Half Weeks Old

More Three Weeks

Nap Time

Four Weeks - Swimming Torpedoes

Five Weeks

Six Weeks

Six Weeks Coming Out of the Coop - (Before the rubber mats were put down)

Seven Weeks

Lumpy Lucy, The Piggy Goose: Video

2010-08-07T15:07:00.001-07:00

During the winter of 2009/2010, I gave the waterfowl spinach. On this occasion I had the video camera and you can see how much Lucy, my embden goose, loves spinach.

Duck Antics - Video

2010-08-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

When this video was made the music was playing on the CD player in the background, so all of the situations that coincide with the music well are merely coincidence. This is part of the fun of this video.

Sao-Ree Dactyl, Pet Muscovy: Videos

2010-08-07T14:54:00.000-07:00

Sao-Ree Dactyl born on April 9, 2010. At first we thought he was a girl, so he was named Sallee.

Dot-Dot and Dali: Video

2010-08-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

Dot-Dot (Magpie duck) and Dali (Buff Orpington) born on March 4, 2010.

**UPDATE OCTOBER 2010** Little Dali was killed by a predator in a terrible accident on October 21, 2010. I blame myself as I did not make sure she was safe and was careless in this instance. She is the first duck I've lost (other than hatchlings who died within a day) in the past one and a half years I've raised pet ducks. In the days following I've been fortunate enough to hear the stories of friends who have also lost their pet ducks in accidents, which has helped me to not be too hard on myself, which is something I tend to do. Dali was cremated by Family Pet Memorial Service here in Spokane. I loved her so much as I love every single one of my ducks. It is difficult.

Sofiya, Wee-Woo, and Coco: Videos

2010-08-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

Huey "Wee-Woo" Goo, Sofiya, and Coco born on February 24, 2010. Wee-Woo is an Emden gander, Sofiya is a pekin, and Coco is a khaki Campbell.

The Personality Series: Augie March - King of Doodles

2010-05-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

Who is the great Augie March - King of Doodles? He seems kind of famous in some circles and if you saw him in person it would be apparent that no one pushes him around...much. While Ming and Clyde were due to hatch shortly, Augie came home from Big R with me. He, of course, was hatched in March of 2009, a Cayuga duckling, actually more of a chocolate brown color than black like most Cayugas. (Cayuga is a Native American tribe from the area where New York is now located. There is also a Lake Cayuga. This breed of large black duck with iridescent green sheen was developed in the mid 1880s as a non-flying, dual purpose breed descended from the wild mallard.)
Augie was such a little guy. I named him Augie because that was the name that rolled off my tongue one day as I was chatting with him. I later found that the name is included in the title of a novel by Saul Bellow: The Adventures of Augie March, and that is where it came creeping from--the depths of my subconscious mind. (He liked to repeat a soft chirping that sounded to me like, "Little-duck, little-duck, little-little, duck-duck!) We would go on and on like this, interacting, as I kept him warm. I devoted the first few months of his life caring for him as best I could, trying to imitate many of the behaviors a mother duck would in order to keep him healthy. He slept next to me on a heating pad, beneath a blanket and if he woke during the night I would find out if he was hungry if he nibbled at my fingers gently. For a while it was like having a newborn baby, minus the shrill screams, of course.

Augie was a traveling duck. He grew up taking car rides, sometimes in my lap, other times in his laundry basket, which served as a sort of transport mechanism and a resting place while he was at home. He traveled to Seattle, Montana, to the pet store in Spokane, and to the arboretum, and, later, he had a play date with a beautiful Pekin named Fritz who lives on Spokane's south hill. The reason Augie rides in the car so well, and enjoys it, is because he began riding in the car when he was a young duckling. The only thing he doesn't like is when a huge semi truck blasts past us. Sometimes this startles him. That's why it is never a good idea to roll the window down with your pet duck sitting on your lap, because he or she may become startled and fly out the window. It's not safe!

Augie is quite a character. He would accompany me to the park to watch my step daughters play basketball while he sat in the rest flap of his pet carrier or he would nestle on my lap and make squeaky teenage drake noises. He also followed me faithfully, so I could take him to the local arboretum where dogs were not allowed and we could walk, still do, around. People sometimes ask how I get a duck to do this, assuming he is a wild duck, or others will be wise enough to ask about having a pet duck, because obviously he's my duck. (Ha ha.) Whenever I make feather earrings for The Lucy Goose, Augie sneaks up and steals my beading tools and runs away with them. I end up chasing him as he zig-zags across the yard, dragging my pliers or a plastic bag filled with beads through mud. Silly boy! Last fall I found him messing with something that looked like a pebble in the swimming pool. I picked it up and wiped it off to find it was a glass heart. I thought, "O Augie, you've given me your heart!"

When Augie was about six weeks old he began spending time with Ming and Clyde, my Indian runner boys hatched from eggbid eggs, and Lucy, my Embden gosling. At first Augie had to be separated because he was older and picked on the little ones, but soon they were running around together and even went on a trip to Montana and a camping trip where they played in the creek all afternoon. It wasn't long after this that Augie began displaying adolescent mating behaviors. His hormones kicked in and he was not shy about choosing a mate. Guess who his first choice was? That's right---it was me. At first it was funny. I'd be lounging about reading while kicked back on my chair and Augie would jump up on my chest and start positioning himself. It was easy to laugh and place him on the ground. He gave up easily at first, but as the months drew on, he tried other tactics, such as grabbing the skin on the back of my hands or arms when I was preoccupied with yard work. In order to get free I would have to remove him, which would result in welts and bruises. A duck friend of mine told me to discipline him by taking his bill in my hand gently and saying, "NO!" when he did this, but my friend said to be careful not to "break Augie's little heart". Besides me he favored the goose, who eventually began allowing him to mate with her. (I think this is because she's a sweet and tolerant goose, not because she's attached to him or chosen him as her mate. Geese are different; they form lifelong partners. Domestic ducks tend to mate with various partners.) And, even to this day, Augie comes running if I enter the duck pen or let him out to play in the yard. I've become so used to having my skin snapped by his bill that sometimes I don't notice I have welts until hours or, perhaps, a day later. I become focused on a task and before I know it he's got me. (It's dangerous to wear shorts.)

When people come up to me and say, "O I want a duck as a pet. He's so cute!" I don't really recommend that they get a duck as a pet. Ducks aren't for everyone. For one thing, Augie was a cute little duckling, but he grew up within a matter of weeks and became an adolescent with raging hormones. Now he's a drake. He likes to mate, take baths, dabble, and sometimes he gets into tussles with the other drakes, especially Ming, over my goose Lucy. This spring the rivalry between Ming and Augie reached a climax. Ming lost all of his chest feathers because he broke Augie's tail feathers off. Augie's been walking around all spring with a silly looking butt--no long tail feathers, just a single curved drake feather that resembles a bee stinger. Some people would maybe ask why I tolerate Augie's behavior. Why would I keep him if he's always running at me and leaving welts? Well, Augie's just doing what a drake does. He's not being nasty or aggressive, rather he is trying to mate and it follows that he would logically see me as his mate since he is imprinted on humans. Even in his overall relation to the rest of the flock, Augie is cool and collected. He isn't too interested in the female ducks, but as the months have wore on he's integrated and is part of a buddy system which includes Ming and Clyde. They are often seen cheering each other on while one of them is mating and/or looking out for each other--when Ming isn't jealous about Lucy the goose.

On the other hand, for informational purposes I would not recommend getting a male duckling as a pet for a child, though I've heard it works out fine sometimes. It may be that Augie was imprinted heavier than many children would be capable of if given a pet duckling. After all how many children's parents would allow them to sleep with their duck like I did with Augie? Not many, since it requires a lot of towels and wee pads, constant cleaning and supervision. It would be better for young children to have female ducks or more than one duck so that they imprint on each other. My drake Iliya was raised with six females and he never gives me a second thought. Clyde, who was raised with Ming and Lucy, was imprinted to a degree, though not as much as Augie, and he still chases me, but if he bites it's not hard so not an issue. There really are many questions to ask when deciding whether or not to imprint a bird. It is a serious commitment and I don't believe it's an option to "get rid of" the bird if he or she doesn't turn out the way one intends. Each bird has his/her own personality, so there is no way to ensure that a pet duck will be as responsive as one wants. Remember: you're in it for a lifetime.

People have also mentioned to me how they would've never imagined a duck could have so much personality, yet after visiting my flock and seeing it with their own eyes, they are amazed. Yes, ducks are characters. Augie tests me just like a dog would. Last year when I planted tomatoes he would sneak up to the plants and touch them with his bill and then look at me with his beady eyes. Of course I'd tell him no, so he'd touch the leaves again, maybe nibble a bit, until I told him no a second time. If I didn't catch him in time he'd rip off a few leaves and run off with them. Augie is now over a year old and I've since found out there's a band called Augie March, though I've never listened to them. Right now he's foraging in the yard beneath the plum tree, as I write this, his head turning as he looks back and forth and waddles about. He rather resembles one of those cartoon body builders who have a huge muscular torso and teeny-tiny skinny legs--you know, the ones who walk around in speedos as if their butts are hungry. I've noticed, too, that he keeps one eye on me all the time. From across the yard his beady black eye will be fixed in my direction. He knows his name and will often, when he chooses, break out of the flock and come running when I call him.

In March 2010, around his first birthday, he was asked by a local artist to participate in a gallery show, Happiness and Torture, part of an exhibit called MONTH, held here in Spokane at Kolva-Sullivan Gallery. Along with Ming, Clyde, and Lucy, Augie wandered about the gallery squirting duck doo here and there as a torture scene ensued. It was interesting to see the juxtaposition between the tension created by the torture scene and the glee in the faces of gallery goers as they mused at the flock. The idea, said Bruce Hormann, one of the artists, was to create an ethical dilemma. At the end of the month the MONTH project came to an end with a final party. Augie attended the party without any other flock members. He delighted people, as usual, and caused trouble by knocking down their piles of carefully placed pink rocks. (Augie doesn't tend to chase me or pinch when we're out and about.) Eventually, he became tired and slept in the middle of the gallery floor, standing on one leg, one eye open just a crack.

Augie (far right) at Kolva-Sullivan Gallery

Augie visits with Jamie at the MONTH finale party.

A young Augie during a trip to Seattle.

The Personality Series: Olga Doodle

2010-05-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

O little Olga! She was the biggest of the original Quack Squad, the seven ducklings from Nature's Hatchery that arrived in July 2009. Olga was the duckling one thinks of traditionally when one thinks of ducklings: all yellow, fluffy, one who will grow up to be some sort of white. I could tell Olga from the other two yellow fluffies (Iliya and Noi) in the bunch, because Olga had a bigger butt and when she got wet her eyes bugged out. My sister laughed at her and called her the 'bug eye'. I remember having a synesthesia type experience with these yellow runner ducklings--every time I looked at them my nasal passages filled with the scent of banana popsicles, the kind I used to get at the Malo Store in the late seventies/early eighties. Their color must have matched the banana popsicles so closely that my brain reacted with banana popsicle sensations. I could almost taste the sweet banana cold watching them run around last July.

   There was a short period of time when it was difficult to tell, at a glance, which duckling was Olga and which was Noi as they were both growing feathers and had residual fluff stuck to the ends of their feathers. I began to notice, at a certain angle, that Olga had large fawn patches on both eyes, while Noi had a small patch on her right eye. Over time Olga began to get freckles, too, until her entire bill became freckled.
   Olga's name came about naturally, as do the names of all of my pets. I simply wait for the name to arrive and it does. Olga was heftier than the other ducklings and I already had the boy fawn and white runner named Iliya, so it made sense that she was Olga when the name popped into my head.
   As Olga grew to be a few weeks old she swam in the blue sled that I filled with water in the back yard. She loved to dive and splash with her six duckling friends. She always stayed close to the group, never wandering, and as time went on I noticed she preferred the company of Noi to all others. At first I didn't know why this was the case, but I had read somewhere on a forum, a comment someone had posted, something along the lines of chickens and ducks discriminate, too. This person said they had proof, because their fowl broke up into distinct groups based on color or breed--but this person referred to it as "race". I don't see it this way. Here's why.

There is no evidence that fowl discriminate based on "race". While it is evident to me, after hundreds of hours of observation, that each bird is an individual and has his/her preferences in many things, even as far as a choice in mating partner is concerned, fowl do not "discriminate" for the empty and ignorant reasons that humans often choose to exclude or commit hate crimes against others. As I watched the seven members of The Quack Squad grow up and mingle with the older drakes Augie, Ming, and Clyde I noticed that the boys preferred Beetle, Bella, Mary, and Emily (all black) over Noi and Olga (fawn and white). Olga would approach Clyde and Clyde would push her away with his bill. She would flirt by bobbing her head to the side, up and down, and make her crackly cackle sound to entice the drakes, but even Iliya, who is a fawn and white drake, would walk away. Finally, Olga and Noi began flirting with the girls, too. On occasion I would see them in the pool, mating with the other girls, going through all of the motions the drakes went through during mating: head bobbing, climbing on top, grabbing the back of the hen's head, wiggling about (minus the penis), and collapsing into the water on their sides and then swimming around in a cheerful frenzy as if something wondrous was accomplished. Did they think they were boys because they were rejected by the boys? How does this work? And why were they rejected?

Olga is nearly a year old now. She's not a teenager anymore and I don't see her acting like a male any longer. I also don't see the males pushing her away as much, but I don't see her flirting like she did last fall, either. She sits on the nest and lays an egg every single day like clockwork. So why did the boys prefer the black females? I believe it is a natural selection process. When my flock is resting in the afternoon they're spread about the lawn like garden ornaments. The black ducks can rest in shade and the brown ones blend in with the dirt. The white or fawn and white ducks, however, stand out against the dirt, they glow in shade, and they contrast green grass like a glow strip. Who will the predators spot first?
My conclusion is that Olga and Noi, being the only two light colored hens, were rejected due to their inability to camouflage well. It makes sense that the males would choose to mate with hens who can hide well. I don't know if this is a conscious decision on the drakes' part or if they are like most people and have a basis for attraction to ensure successful genetic outcomes. (For most humans there is a desirable identity in mind when it comes to choosing a sexual partner.) Furthermore, Olga is fawn and white due to selective breeding by humans, something that would not have happened to her in the wild as she is derived from wild mallard ducks which are from the subfamily Anatinae, which are dabbling ducks, and they are not white. There are at least fifty species of dabbling ducks throughout the world. Many come in bright colors, but it seems rare to find dabblers that are pure white or close to it. Most are rather mottled, with drakes containing some bright plumage.

Dabbling Ducks

2010-05-13T22:35:00.001-07:00

Lucy Goose: Surgery for Bumblefoot

2010-05-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

*September 2010 Update on Lucy's Bumblefoot Issues:
Lucy was scheduled to return to the veterinarian for surgery on her infected toe. The first surgery went without challenges and follow-up care was meticulous, including the daily cleaning and application of medication to the wound site, followed by re-bandaging. Lucy was moved every day and kept in an exercise pen so that she could be transferred about the yard, away from standing in her own feces. The recommended time to redress the wound was at least three weeks; however, I continued to redress her foot for over five weeks at which time the wound looked nearly recovered, so I removed the bandage. Within days the swelling came back and the wound regained enough swelling that it was nearly the size of the initial infection, so I took her to the veterinarian for more antibiotics and pain medication to administer for a week prior to taking her for a second bumblefoot surgery. Due to financial constraints, I had to reschedule the surgery, but kept giving Lucy antibiotics in addition to making a shoe for her out of a neoprene wetsuit purchased from a thrift store. Within days the swollen bumble began shrinking and was soon on its way to disappearing. No second surgery was necessary. I will soon post a photograph of the shoe I made and some basic instructions on how to create your own. When I told our veterinarian about the shoe and the bumblefoot healing up, he said that I 'may be onto something'.

Bumblefoot (ulcerative pododermatitis) in birds is caused by a small lesion, perhaps from stepping on a sharp object, which becomes infected after bacteria enters the wound. Since birds do not exhibit pus the way we humans do, but instead grow a cutaneous-like mass, a hard ball similar to wax can develop when tissue heals around the wound. This creates a bumble and bumbles can be painful, causing a bird to limp. (If bumbles are left untreated, infection can degrade bone, which may result in the necessary amputation of toes, including joints, and sometimes an entire foot. If left untreated, bumblefoot can cause eventual, and painful, death.) Think of walking around on a marble all day. Even worse, imagine that marble is located beneath a joint. Where the bumble is located can have an effect on treatment and healing time. For example, in the past year there have been two cases of bumblefoot in my flock, both resulting from lesions developed some time last summer, before the substrate in the duck pen was changed to anti-fatigue mats instead of dirt. Even though the seed was planted in these bumbles over six months ago, it took a while for them to become severe enough to require attention. Many small lesions heal on their own.
The first case of bumblefoot involved Beetle, a Cayuga duck. During routine inspection of her feet it was noticed that she had a hard round nodule that was off to the side of her toe, more into the webbing of her feet than close to a joint. This bumble was large enough to cause Beetle to limp. Treatment, in this case, was performed at home using a sterilized scalpel and tweezers. Before beginning, Beetle's foot was cleaned with soap and water followed by Schreiner's Herbal Solution. Since the bumble wasn't close to any veins and was located on the web part of her foot, there wasn't any blood and a true incision did not have to be made. Instead, I applied the blade to the outside edge of the bumble itself, which dislodged and was easily removed with tweezers. (I will soon upload a photo of the bumble beside a ruler, so you can see what it looked like.)
After Beetle's at-home surgery the hole that was left where the bumble had been removed, was treated with Nolvasan Antiseptic Ointment. A non-stick wound pad was placed over the site of surgery and her feet were wrapped loosely with Co-Flex -- A Cohesive Bandage By Andover -- and then taped with surgical tape. When applying the bandage it is important to note that the webbed feet of waterfowl need to lie flat, so the bandage needs to be created so that the foot can remain in its natural position. (In photos following you will see an example.) Since birds heal fast, Beetle remained in the house overnight and we inspected her wound the following morning. Again, since the bumble was located on the webbed part of her foot, recovery time was minimal, and with a spray of Cut Heal Multi Care Aerosol Wound Spray (a kind of spray bandage), Beetle was good to go almost immediately. More severe cases of bumblefoot, however, require special handling. Lucy, my Embden goose, required veterinary surgery for a larger bumble located beneath a toe joint.

Lucy went to the vet a week ago for a limp and swollen toe joint. Also her leg began to turn a yellowish hue. She underwent seven days of treatment with Baytril antibiotics and was given the painkiller Metacam for a couple of days. Nearly all of the swelling went down and by the fifth day Lucy was no longer limping; however, on the seventh day it was apparent that further care was required as Lucy was limping again and the area around her joint remained enlarged. (See photo both top and right.) Yesterday's visit to her veterinarian, Dr. Ponti, confirmed that, since the inflammation went down and the circumstances were more visible, Lucy had bumblefoot. The poor goo!
Lucy was kept inside overnight, restricted to water only until the next morning when the surgery was scheduled. Surgery took place this morning. Following are step-by-step photos, though not particularly detailed, taken with the camera on an Android phone. I think you will get the basic idea of what bumblefoot surgery entails.

Lucy knows her way around Dr. Ponti's office after her visit the previous day, and another time when she had an eye injury and received a referral. When I approached the driveway to the office, she let out a grunt of irritation, I think because she knew where we were--birds have an excellent recognition system, otherwise how would they follow flight paths so well? She was supposed to spend the night, but after familiarizing herself with the office and the kennel area, decided she was NOT going to spend the night in a concrete floored jail cell. (Those are her exact words.) So, she was taken home and brought back in the morning.
The first step in Lucy's surgery was administration of gas to put her to sleep. Most people are not allowed in the office to view this part of the procedure, because they tend to become startled when their pet jerks around during the going to sleep phase and this can cause upset in the surgery room. Lucy is a sweet, mild tempered goose, so there wasn't much to putting her to sleep, though they had to raise the level of gas a couple of times, because she kept waking up.

After gas, next came intubation--the insertion of a tube down Lucy's throat to maintain an unobstructed airway so she could breathe well during surgery. Her foot was cleaned thoroughly with solution that appeared to be iodine and a tourniquet tied around her right ankle, just above her thumb-toe to reduce blood flow. (This is since the bumble was deep and tissue had healed around it, making it prone to bleeding, unlike Beetle's situation.) Blue paper surgery shrouds were placed around Lucy's foot. Then Dr. Ponti began surgery using a scalpel.

In the photo to the left Lucy lies calmly after administration of gas, cleaning of her foot, and insertion of a breathing tube. She is now prepped for surgery to her bumblefoot.
Waterfowl are not the only creatures to develop bumblefoot, pet rats, mice, guinea pigs, etc. develop infections from walking on wire-bottom cages. Raptors such as falcons, eagles, owls, and hawks also develop the condition. Here is a web site from Tufts University that includes a plethora of information about avian diseases, including a photograph of severe bumblefoot: http://ocw.tufts.edu/Content/60/Lecturenotes/797662.
Beginning to cut out Lucy's bumble:

Pulling chunks of the bumble out of Lucy's foot:

The tourniquet:

Cauterizing the wound:

A donut was cut in the padded bandage material to cushion her foot:

Remember, when bandaging bird feet, make sure they can stand naturally

once the bandage is on. Notice how Lucy's webs are spread wide as the

bandage is secured:

The finished foot. I was cautioned to not think all of the tape is

excessive, rather it is a necessity:

Though she's groggy, Lucy's ready to go home:

After Care

Following surgery Lucy's bandage must be changed at home at least once per day. She must be kept off of feces as much as possible. (Those of you who care for waterfowl know how difficult this can be.) Therefore, Lucy will spend her time in the back yard, on the grass, and not in the pen with the other ducks. She receives 1.5 CC of Metacam for pain, once per day and a dose of Baytril antibiotics, which must be refrigerated. Both of these medications are in liquid form.

Bumblefoot can be difficult to treat, so it is not unreasonable to consider that surgery may need to be repeated at some time in the future. Dr. Ponti explained that there is a sort of 'seed' in the bumble and if that infection is not removed, the pus can form around the seed again, resulting in bumble re-growth.

For more information on bumblefoot, search Google for cases presented in raptors as there is much more information than what is available for waterfowl.

Ducks are Individuals, Each and Every One

2010-03-16T23:04:00.000-07:00

You come out of your shell, out of that warm wet world of semi-darkness, into the bright lights--or into an incubator drawer--when, normally, you would emerge and hear the heartbeat in your mother's downy breast in a nest she'd built for the occasion of your birth. It would have been springtime if you'd been hatched naturally, instead of at some factory. Your mother would have uttered sweet vocalizations and her voice would have guided you onto your feet. She would have oiled you with her oil gland and perhaps you'd have been floating waterproof behind her that very same day, instead of being poked and prodded and thrown into crates and boxes, crying for a mother you will never see.

You will never know who your mother is. You are an orphan and a product of humankind. A creation. But you don't know that. You definitely didn't ask for it to be this way. Instead you are thrown into this world, your tiny heart formed and nurtured by your absent mother's egg yolk and the constant temperature of the incubator. I wonder how scared you are when you begin to hatch, or even before you hatch, when you peep from inside the egg, but there is no answer. What does that fear do to you? And the anxiety you feel when you are calling out in the incubator, not yet dry, cheeping for her presence, but hearing only the desperate cries of hundreds, if not thousands--the echo of your own terrified voice chiming on and on for the first few days of your life as you are shuffled through a noisy factory, put on trucks, airplanes, dropped, exposed to drafts, perhaps crowded with one hundred or two hundred other ducklings, some dead beneath you--how much do you suffer?

When the box finally opens you are exposed, once more, to bright artificial lights and maybe placed in a pen or cage. If this pen is on the floor of a pet store, you will be bombarded with the shrieks of beasts, all of them coming and going all day long, some of them tapping and banging, and sometimes the lid comes off and something menacing appears from above and chases you as you scream. Where is your mother? What is happening?

These aliens have devised a method of creating you without your mother's permission. It is unnatural for you, this experience, but you are the one who suffers, little duck. Those silenced cheeps you utter go unheard because many humans do not listen closely. Some people want you because you are cute and then they forget about you. Little kids might torture you, carry you around until you starve or suffocate. Or maybe you choke on your food because your new owner doesn't know that you have to have water with your food, or food becomes lodged in your airways. Or you are left in a tub of water (because ducks love water, right?) and because you haven't been oiled by your mother you become waterlogged and then, finally exhausted, and drown. When you cry no one answers. It could happen to you, duckling. I wish it didn't have to be this way.

And there are thousands of ducks out there, big and small. Some can fly and join the wild or settle around local ponds. Some are picked off one by one by hawks or coyotes or coons. Some are given free reign until one day someone comes with an axe or a shot rings out and they drop from the sky, their wings flap helplessly as they fall to earth.

But not you, my ducklings. I cannot take you all, but I took you. I cannot take you all. But for you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you and you, I can do something. You will be fed. You will be warm. I will listen.

Doodles in Fine Art Photography

2010-03-13T14:31:00.000-08:00

Bella

Olga

Noi and Olga

Mary and Augie

Bella

Chai, Beetle, Noi

Clyde

Bella

Ming and Lucy: Soul Train

2010-03-13T14:16:00.001-08:00

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Cute Consumer Holiday Means Hell and Suffering for Living Beings

2010-03-02T09:31:00.000-08:00

What happens to all of those chicks and ducklings that are purchased from pet stores (shipped from hatcheries) and placed in Easter baskets during the month of April? Ask most people you know and you will find that they don't even know what a chick or a duckling eats or that they need to be kept warm or that they imprint on humans or that they (ducklings) require water with food or they will choke. People think they can purchase a batch of chicks or ducklings, keep them around during the Easter holiday, and then give them to a pet store where they will be sold as "pets". Or people believe they can release them at the local pond where they will be happy and free, living out a life of dabbling, swimming, and frolicking with their pals.

Nothing is further from the truth. First of all, how many people do you know who have ducks (or chicks) as pets? Exactly. People must not think. How else does one explain the fact that so many babies are mauled by children, starved, or otherwise suffer a long, painful death during such a happy! happy! time for consumers? As a result millions of people celebrate the holiday and many people choose to give chicks and ducklings (sometimes dyed bright colors) as gifts. It is reasonable to ask what happens to these babies during or after the holidays. All it takes is a few simple thoughts, some consideration, to understand the consequences of such frenzied ignorance as that invested in giving little beings as gifts without further commitment to their futures.

Easter symbolizes the rebirth of Jesus. Renewal. New life. There's a saying often seen on bumper stickers and t-shirts: WWJD (What would Jesus do?) Really. What would Jesus do? I sincerely hope Jesus wouldn't support the senseless suffering of thousands of innocent baby animals. I really don't think he would approve. After all, senseless killing? How rational, or kind, is it to create (commercially) thousands upon thousands of lives, all hatched from eggs (in incubators) which are subsequently used as symbols of Easter renewal? All of this due to a religious belief. And yet, most religions claim to be thoughtful, kind, righteous, and in the best interest of love. What gives?

What happens to chicks and ducklings after Easter? I, personally, wasn't aware that this was a tradition. I hadn't heard of it before. After all, why would people demand the production of living beings that they will later discard thoughtlessly? You tell me. I think of the individual who visits the pet store, sees the ducklings, and says, "Ahhhhh! Let's get some for Tommy for Easter. They will be so cute!" Innocent enough, right? I don't see it that way. I see it as blatant ignorance, impulse buying, and disregard for life. Yes, they are cute, but will they be given a good life? What will happen to them now that they are at the mercy of this so-called highly intelligent Homo sapien who has bought them because they are "cute" and because it is a holiday?

Based on the research I've done, most Easter ducklings and chicks:

-starve to death, an agonizing process akin to being in hell;
-are mauled, a slow, painful death often involving asphyxiation, broken bones, torn wings, etc;
-if they are lucky enough to grow, are dumped at a pond or somewhere in the wild where they a) starve to death or b) are taken by predators;
-are given to pet stores (where they are often purchased for slaughter);
-are surrendered to animal shelters and then....;
-are sacrificial symbols of religion (whether it is admitted or not).

I just don't think the production and selling (consuming) of Easter chicks and ducklings is justified by the celebration of a holiday. I think a holiday symbolic of renewal is better celebrated with restraint, with a live and let live attitude, and by refraining from impulse purchases and animal sacrifice. I suppose in this day and age people would not readily admit that animal sacrifice is still part of a religious holiday, but what else is it? If we humans claim to be so intelligent, then we must know the results of our choices, correct? Or do humans simply choose not to admit the obvious? Either way, suffering takes place and it's needless. It's not thoughtful nor symbolic of love or representative of intelligence. Some may say intelligence is apparent in our ability to celebrate and worship. I say no it is not. Intelligence is having the courage to research and understand consequences and the bravery to admit when we should refrain from causing suffering to others--all others.

For more information:

http://www.liveducks.com/easter.html

http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/earthlings.php

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/breakingnews/114040.php

http://www.cdc.gov/HEALTHYPETS/EASTER_CHICKS.HTM

http://www.ibabuzz.com/garybogue/2008/03/20/easter-ducklings-chicks-pose-environmental-health-hazards/

http://www.arkanimals.com/2009/04/01/easter-chicks-will-they-be-dead-or-alive/

Doodles Say 'Doot Doot'

2010-02-20T20:46:00.001-08:00

Augie And Lucy Go On A Field Trip To Finch Arboretum

2010-02-20T20:27:00.001-08:00

Ming's Moments

2010-02-20T20:24:00.000-08:00

Little Ming is quite a character. From the start he's had an interesting life. One of his nicknames is Erkel Duck. Lately, I've been calling him Max Schreck after Willem Dafoe's character in "Shadow of the Vampire" because he waits until after dark to gather the ladies together in the privacy of the trunk chest nest and 'diddle' them. During the daylight he stands around, looking confused, and startles the other ducks by pouncing on them from behind with his mouth wide open.

Ming & Clyde: As Ducklings

2010-01-04T15:27:00.000-08:00

Ming and Clyde will have their first birthdays soon. Clyde was born on April 1, 2009 and Ming was born on April 3, 2009. Little squeakers. So cute.

Little Clyde

The Personality Series: Iliya Doodle

2009-12-25T18:59:00.000-08:00

Iliya (Illy) was born on July 8th, 2009, the only boy member of the Quack Squad--seven day old ducklings shipped from Nature's Hatchery, arriving at the post office in the wee hours of July 9th, which was a Wednesday. When they arrived and I opened the box, I was still fairly new to raising waterfowl, having imprinted Augie since March 1st and then Ming, Clyde, and Lucy shortly after. It had been difficult to determine the Augie's gender, in particular, so I wasn't sure how difficult it would be to pick out the only male member of the Quack Squad (they were sexed at the hatchery: six females, one male). The box they arrived in was so tiny and when I removed the top seven little fuzzies peeped and looked up at me, four three yellow, which would turn out to be fawn and white Indian runners, and four black, which would grow into two black Indian runners and two Cayugas. Iliya was one of the fawn and white runners.

I noticed there was one little one with a slender head who stood erect from the box and peered at me with his head cocked, examining me with one eye. He did this all the time. He was also inquisitive and he answered when I called out to him and the other ducklings. He had a curiosity that was unmatched by any of the others and he stood out from the group because of this.
As with all of my ducklings, and my goose, I began forming pet names for them. This always occurred naturally and was never forced. With Iliya and the rest of The Quack Squad it became "Doot-doot, doot-doot-doot doot-doot!" because this is the sound they made. Shortly I could tell that one of the ducklings, Iliya, had a hoarse voice and he was not so much a "doot-dooter". It wasn't long before I began to suspect he was the boy--within days due to his venturesome personality and hoarse little voice. And, it turned out, I was right. My friend M. visited and verified that Iliya was, in fact, a little drake. (It was always easy to tell which duckling Iliya was due to his light yellow coloring and the discoloration around the top of his bill--where it connects to his face.)

A short time after the ducklings arrived my friend D. from Tucson arrived for a vacation. Iliya became his favorite duckling. D. would sit outside with me in the shade of the golden plum tree and watch the ducklings play, observing that the girls were following Iliya's lead and that he wouldn't let them out of his sight. D. also said something like, "Iliya's going to grow up thinking those girls are all his. What then?" I knew that, perhaps, that would become a bridge we'd have to cross when we got to it. Luckily, though, it never became an issue as Iliya has always minded his own business, wooing the ladies from the background, and he has remained non-confrontational with the other three drakes, Augie, Clyde, and Ming.

As Iliya and The Quack Squad grew, they played together like siblings, splashing and running around the yard, napping together, dabbling in mud, and munching on grass. I would let the big boys and Lucy into the yard with them, but I had to keep an eye out, because the drakes would chase them if left unattended. But at about four to six weeks I began to allow them to co-mingle more and more. Eventually, The Quack Squad had the half of the duck yard that's closest to the coop. In this way they could get used to the drakes and Lucy who had the other half of the yard. When they were big enough I let them out together more and more until they were able to go together as one flock. It was a fairly easy process. It just had to be done right and not too soon.

   Iliya hasn't gotten into fights with the other boys. They seem to ignore each other for the most part. When Iliya is interested in a girl, he goes up to her, sometimes flirting, sometimes simply trying to climb on and, if she allows it, he mates with her. I've seen him with all of the girls, but Bella and Beetle appear most attached to Iliya. I've watched Olga and Noi, who are the two female fawn and white runners, flirt with Iliya and he does mate with them, but not as often as he does with the others. (For some reason the fawn and white girls are ignored by the males a lot.)
   About a month ago I moved one of the duck houses--the fancy one--into the duck yard. Last week I placed a rubber mat at the bottom and Iliya was the first to venture in and check out the interior. Once inside he began calling to the girls and, sure enough, Bella went inside with him. This morning, when the ducks were first let out of the coop, Iliya went inside the duck house, sat on the nest (made from a tire filled with straw), and began calling to the girls.
   I think he was saying, "I'm not a player, I'm a family man! Welcome to my crib!"

Above Photo: Iliya is center.

Above: The awkward stage.

Lucy Goose: She Likes To Chew On Me!

2009-12-22T10:05:00.001-08:00

Doodles First Snow: Video

2009-12-20T18:14:00.000-08:00

Augie March - King of Doodles, The Quack Squad, and Ming, Clyde, and Lucy burst out of the coop in the morning to discovery the first real snowfall of their lives.

The Personality Series: Mr. Clyde

2009-12-20T18:00:00.000-08:00

His name is Mr. Clyde. I call him a Doodle along with the rest of The Doodles, which is a generic term for duckies. Mr. Clyde arrived in a box with seven other eggs, a bid I won last winter on eggbid.com for six beautiful black Indian runner eggs (breeders usually include a couple of extra eggs to improve hatch rate). Clyde was born about a day and a half before Ming, who was also part of this clutch, incubated beneath a broody hen in my back room. Clyde pipped the egg with his egg tooth and i was surprised to see a black bill with a yellow pattern on it that reminded me of the markings on a paint pony. He was a wet little guy and once he emerged fully from the egg, I could see his orange and black feet. Another egg hatched, but the little one died. It was different than Clyde, all black, smaller, just like Little Ming, who was born soon after. From the beginning, however, I was confused about Clyde's markings--those orange and black feet and bill and the large white spot on his chest. He was spunky, pecking at Ming and darting back and forth across the living room floor, nibbling the video camera.

Ming and Clyde have been best buddies, or brothers, since hatching. Whenever there is something up, Ming runs up to Clyde and jabbers to him--as if Clyde can fix the situation. Clyde was named by my sister, Brianna. When she first saw him she said, "Promise me you'll name this one Clyde." and so he came by his name. Unlike Ming, Clyde has never had any unfortunate things happen to him and he's never been an underdog. He's always been confident and, as I soon found out, is a lady killer.
My friend M. brought his trio of saxony ducks over for a night. M.'s drake is huge--far bigger than Augie and definitely massive compared to Clyde. The pullet in M.'s trio began making eyes at Clyde, who returned the flirtations. She would flirt with Clyde, he'd inch close to her, both their heads bobbing, and then M.'s huge drake would notice. Suddenly, the pullet would wax cold and shun Clyde, turning her attention to her own drake. She would begin roughing Clyde up as if he were harassing her. Then, they'd put distance between them and it would all start over again.

The runner and Cayuga ladies also like Clyde. I believe he has good genetics, because, as I had suspected, he's half wild mallard. This happened because his mother, as reported by his breeder back in Oklahoma, was not returning from the pond to be put away for the night, so the breeder had to round her up. Well, Clyde's mother was out later and later and was finally discovered with a mallard beau. This explains Clyde's distinct markings and low-rider duck style--which is quite unlike Ming's tall Indian runner posture.
Everyone is quick to exclaim, "That one is beautiful!" when they see Clyde. The feathers behind his legs have the penciled pattern common to mallards. He also has a deep red brown splashed about his body, almost as if he is rusted or frosted in mahogany. He has a white patch on his chest, white wing tips and a little white around his bill and eyes. And he has the most brilliant green head of all of my ducks. There are feathers on his back that are a gorgeous hue of grayish brown.

Clyde has always been mild-mannered and calm. He has been on several road trips, including a Memorial Day camping trip to a remote campsite with a creek where he swam with Lucy, Ming, and Clyde. He has also, when he was only a month old, been on a road trip to Kalispell, Montana where he, Lucy, Ming, and Augie spent time eating dandelions in my cousin S.'s yard and accompanying me on a drive around Lakes McDonald and Five. They went on a second trip to Kalispell for the weekend of the fourth of July.

Ming and Clyde in Montana. April, 2009.

Clyde enjoys dabbling in mud.

Clyde and Ming are like siblings (they came from the same farm in Oklahoma).

The Personality Series: Mary Doodle

2009-12-18T11:40:00.000-08:00

Mary, born July 8, 2009, part of The Quack Squad, was at first the 'ordinary' black Indian runner girl amongst a group of four black ducklings including Emily, Bella, and Beetle. Yes Mary, who is named after my great aunt, proved that each being has his/her own personality and quirks, preferences and voice. Mary has a mouth on her, but that's not all. When Mary was the equivalent age in duck days to that of, perhaps, seven or eight years in a human child, she decided she liked the older boys. I tried telling her, "Little Mary Doodle, you still have fluff. You are a duckling, not a hen, not even a pullet yet." Mary didn't care. She strutted up to Augie, her head bobbing to one side, her cracking quack voice repeating the 'service me' song. Then she'd flatten her little body in a gesture that said 'hop on boys' and they did. First Augie would climb on and then Clyde would climb on top of Augie so they were stacked three ducks deep, Mary on the bottom quacking loudly. (This is often the only scene captured in many YouTube videos that are labeled 'duck rape'. Most people who are filming do not realize there is, in most cases, an entire sequence of mating behaviors that take place before and after the actual mating and the female does quack loudly, which can sound like panic.)

Miss Mary Doodle has never panicked. She knows what she's doing. After the boys have toppled over (they become stiff and simply fall on their sides like a saw horse would fall if it were kicked, and then they stretch their necks and run in circles in what is an obvious dance of triumph and glee) Mary pops right back up and begins running after Augie or Clyde again, her head bobbing to one side--usually her left, her dut-dut dut-dut quack begging for more attention.
Little Mary. For a while she had an indentation on the back of her head from the boys grabbing the feathers to hold on while mating. I've felt this place on the back of her head, which seems to be at the base of her skull, and there is a deposit of fatty tissue there which indicates to me that it is cushioned specifically for the purpose of providing a hang-on for the drake's bill.

In keeping with her pushy demeanor, Mary is feisty in other ways. One day when I placed a rubber mat beneath the food shelter none of the other ducks, nor the goose Lucy, would venture onto the mat to get food. I sat back and watched Lucy walk forward, stretch her neck curiously, and then turn around and look at me. The other ducks merely stood erect, almost on their tip toes, in order to get a look at what was going on---what was that black thing and did they dare approach it? Mary began cackling to herself the way she often does and, with normal posture, she marched right up to the mat and placed her webbed foot on it, then the other webbed foot, and kept right on going up to the food trough where she started gulping corn and layer pellets. The other ducks looked at each other as if to say, "Hmmm...well, she did it, so can we!" Lucy, who is always hungry, followed immediately on Mary's heels and the rest is history.

Mary is so persistent, though, that the boys became exhausted from her advances. I began to notice, after the initial excitement of 'getting a girl', the boys started ignoring her. They'd be out in the grass grazing or dabbling along the edge of the pool and Mary would approach, bobbing her promiscuous head, quacking her wanton quack, and Clyde or Augie would walk off. This only resulted in Mary following them around the yard, continuing her pleas for attention.
You will not be surprised, then, when I tell you Mary has pinched me. Yes, when I brought her inside to treat her feet one day, she grabbed the skin above my wrist, on the back of my arm, and twisted it. Snap! There was a small bruise, but not nearly as large as the numerous bruises one teenage boy Augie Duck had given me during summer when he was most restless for a girlfriend.

I do not know the answer as to why Mary was so sexually precocious. She had at least a month or more lead time in the flirting department; she began way before the other girls. I think in some ways this provided a buffer, since Augie and Clyde were beginning to get restless and I saw them jump Bella and Beetle a few times while they were swimming in the pool. It was clear Bella and Beetle were not ready for mating and I wonder what would have happened if all the girls had continued to resist. Would the drakes have raped them in this case? Not with Mary around. In fact, as is clear in what I've shared about Mary already, she wore the drakes out. Augie and Clyde began avoiding her. It was funny to watch.
Super sexed Little Miss Mary Doodle! She's the talk of the town.

Mary flirting with Augie. Augie steps aside to let Clyde mate with her.

This entire time Mary is bobbing her head.

This was back when Little Ming didn't know what to do with girls.

I think Mary is confused after Ming steps away.

Mary sees Clyde approaching, so she squats down for him.

Clyde grips the back of Mary's head in his bill.

The Personality Series: Emily Doodle

2009-12-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

Emily is a black Indian runner pullet. She is a pullet because she's less than one year old. After her first year she will be called a hen. Emily hatched on July 8, 2009 at Nature's Hatchery 50 miles south of Chicago in Will County. She is a member of The Quack Squad, a group of seven ducklings shipped together to my home in eastern Washington state, all hatched on July 8th, arriving at the post office on July 9th.
Emily has always stood out from the rest of The Quack Squad. She was the runt, so tiny and fragile in appearance. At first I was concerned about her well being as she would hang out on the fringes of the group, always lying down after brief periods of standing (which indicated that she had weak legs), and failing to thrive. When the other ducklings crowded together to dabble in chopped greens in their water dish, Emily would stand, as if confused or concentrating on the very act of standing, and then give up and go to a far corner of the enclosure so she could rest. I began holding her and coaxing her to eat while she was alone, without the competition of the others. Sometimes Emily would be resting in one of the corners and another duckling would approach and act as if there was something extremely interesting right on the other side of Emily. It seemed they would do this just so they could step on her and make her move. I watched this happen again and again--they acted like little kids who harass their siblings just for the pleasure of it.

   I didn't have to worry about Emily for very long, though, because the more I watched her, the more it became a apparent that she was just different. She didn't like to be in the midst of the crowd, but off by herself. She didn't enjoy taking a swim when surrounded by her peers, but had a great time when in the bath alone. She was also calm, spending time relaxing in my lap.
   As Emily grew I noticed an assertive side to her. She would often sneak up behind Augie and pull his tail feathers in her bill. By the time he turned around, she was gone. I watched her do this a lot. At the time the drakes were much older and potentially dangerous to The Quack Squad, but Emily seemed to get a thrill out of doing this.
   Emily has also been the easiest pullet to talk to. She will be lying down in the yard or going about her Doot-Doot business and I can easily get her attention by saying, "Emily! Emily!" and bobbing my head. Emily has always stopped what she'd doing and looked right at me. She then bobs her head as I repeat her name to her, "Emily! Little Emily!"

Emily has grown into fine lady. She is a deep black with green iridescence all over her body. She is petite and stands more upright than the other girls. I think Emily and Ming would have nice babies.

Ode To A Christmas Goose

2009-12-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

You are the Gung! Gung! Gung!
The Mother Goose of fairy tales,
The Christmas songs we've sung--
A bird who withstands snowy gales
In lands cold north and far far flung.
You are better with your feathers on,
More beautiful plumed and breathing--
Sassy Christmas Goose of mine
You will still wake the Christmas dawn!

You are the splendid Buoyant Goo
Floating in your winter bath--
O how I think the best of you
As we go hand and wing down this path,
The December morning white and blue,
I your Homo sapien, you my Anser anser.
You will outlive any pet cat or dog,
See the tinsel go up and then come down,
Year after year, Honk! Honk! Honk! you will answer.

(Copyright 2009 by Shanti Perez)

Healthy Substrate for a Duck Pen

2009-11-17T11:15:00.000-08:00

June 4, 2011 Update: Trial and error report to you -- It's been a while since this duck pen substrate was installed. The mats work great. I don't think there's anything better than the 36" X 36" anti-fatigue mats, but you have to have a place to clean them. I suggest a grassy area where the waste can be used as fertilizer that washes into the grass. The problem lies in the drainage system. If you live where there's no adjoining property you can easily figure out a solution, but if you have neighbors or roads close by there may be a drainage problem--even if it rains. We found, for this reason, that using 1-2 inch river rock covered by the rubber mats does not work for us, because we have a slope to our property.

The below article refers to what we have tried and it may work perfectly with up to three ducks and exceptional drainage, perhaps even a finer sand substrate, but if you do not have proper drainage or a duck-ponics type of system to filter and utilize the waste water, it will be a foul-smelling runoff that has no place to go.

So, what can be done to promote the health of the ducks as well as the environment? There really is no way around it: you will have to spend more money and do more work. If your ducks and your neighbors are to be happy and healthy you will have to do more work and keep a steady supply of disposable substrate such as straw or pine bedding. We've chosen pine bedding.

Right now we are turning the duck yard back into a garden and turning an outbuilding into a duck house. The outbuilding is garage or studio-sized and will be lined with thick plastic (flexible pond liner) that will be attached several feet up the wall to catch splashes. The floor will be pine bedding and have to be changed frequently. This can be bagged and tossed in with the regular trash (not in a green bin).

It is important to keep the bedding as dry as possible, so we will use a kiddie pool against the wall to hold the rubber water bucket. Lighting is also important and there are three windows in this structure as well as ceiling lights. The structure is meant for nighttime and winter housing only and the ducks will be in the grassy yard during the day. Three separate stalls will divide the space, giving the three groups of different species their own territory. The stalls will be divided by particle board since chicken wire has proven a poking hazard in the past. (A lot of the equipment built for animal use is not safe and if one really cares for the health and well-being of their pet ducks, chicken wire is dangerous unless tacked down securely in all places. Keep in mind that a goose may be able to tear holes in chicken wire that is thin.)

We are making this transition in coming weeks. Stay tuned for photos!

*******************************************************************************

Old article

It's no joke! Ducks are some of the messiest friends to have around. They lack the sphincter muscle which allows us humans, our dogs and cats, and many other animals, to hold their feces inside until finding a suitable place to evacuate. Not so with ducks or geese. When it's time to go the goose juice squirts out, sometimes several feet behind, or onto the veterinarian's lapel. (Hopefully he or she is good natured.) Some people have solved this issue, for the most part, by making or purchasing duck and goose diapers and changing them frequently. This allows the duck to enjoy family time, watch a movie, hang out at the dining room table, etc.

Ducks and geese (birds and reptiles) have one hole from which all waste exits. For them I'm sure this is rather convenient. Since ducks consume so much water throughout the day, dabbling in it and carrying it to mix with their mash, their feces is wetter than that of chickens or most other fowl. The feces contains high concentrations of uric acid and urea that, when compressed and left alone, will create toxic levels of ammonia in an enclosed coop. (As a precaution, you can check ammonia levels at the duck's level and make sure the ammonia is no more than 25 ppm. This is why bedding must be turned and wet bedding replaced with fresh bedding. I use straw.)

Over the past six months I've tried out the dirt floor in the duck pen. Dirt worked fine for chickens, but the ducks love having fun in mud and water. The outcome is undesirable in the long run. I tried digging a trench to keep the runoff from their dabbling and to keep their dumped pool water from becoming stagnant and odiferous, but this proved unmanageable. The feces on the dirt could not be hosed off, either. Soon I noticed the ducks were getting sores on their feet which I suspect comes from walking on feces and a build-up of mulched soil. Adding straw did not help, but made it worse in the long run as the straw compressed into a hard layer over the top of the soil and had to be removed by pitchfork. Another drawback to the soil substrate was that the ducks spent considerable time putting dirt into their pool. The dirt collected into a mud at the bottom of the pool and each day when it was cleaned the mud ran out with the discarded water and formed a muddy pool on the asphalt. This mud had to then be routinely scraped with a snow shovel.

My main concern became isolating the mud from the duck's feet. First we removed the top four inches of soil, including the mulch, which resulted in several 5 X 8' trailer loads of material for a community garden nearby. After soil removal we brought in, via dump truck, five tons of 1.5" river rock and built the substrate back up so that approximately four inches of river rock is now between the duck's feet and the dirt below. The idea is that the feces can be hosed down. It washes beneath the rocks and stays away from their feet.

But is this project finished? I knew that the ducks and goose would have difficulty walking on rocks, though my immediate concern was to get them off of the dirty soil. Waterfowl have sensitive feet and are prone to a condition called bumblefoot. Once they become lame from this condition, which is actually an infection inside their feet, they must be carefully and painstakingly treated through an operative procedure which can often be performed at home. Regardless, my objective is to provide them with a healthy, pain-free environment.

Fortunately it will snow soon and this will provide cushioning for their feet. In the meanwhile I will begin purchasing 36 X 36" cushioned, slatted rubber floor mats. These will provide the necessary drainage to keep the duck's feet off of feces and allow simple hosing off so that the waste will drain through the holes and down into the rocks. I can't think of a better way to handle this issue and ensure that my friends have a comfortable and healthy place to play.

*UPDATE: I found the mats at a building supply store and purchased five. This isn't near enough to cover all of the rocks (I'll need about eighteen more). The mats are great, but the ducks seem to not like the contrast between the rocks and the mats, so they hesitate to step on them. Here's what happened this morning when I let them out of the coop:

The came pouring out of the coop--Little Ming almost trampled by Lucy. They ran toward the little shed that shelters their feeding area and stopped, as a group, when they noticed the black mats. They cannot get to the food without stepping on a mat, because there is a mat in the feeding area. As a group they began chatting with each other--chat, chat, chat, chat! as if they were confused about what to do. I sat watching them (of course I needed to make sure they would approach their food and water before I went into the house).

Finally Lucy decided she would eat, because Lucy is a kind of a pig. (I suspected she'd be first). She tromped up to the edge of the mat and STOPPED! Gung! Gung! Gung! she said, and appeared confused. That's when Mary marched forth from the rest of the flock, walked right up onto the mat, and began eating. Lucy followed her. Then the rest of the ducks looked at each other, chatting the entire time, and must have decided that, if Mary can do it, so can we.

Thanks to Little Mary Promiscuous (she must have a strong personality overall) Lucy and The Quack Squad braved the rubber mats this morning.

The girls help load the river rock into the wheel barrow. (I'm eternally grateful for their help.)

Phout invested a lot of energy into this project as well. After I became tuckered, he shoveled, wheeled, and unloaded the remaining soil that needed to be transferred to the community garden site.

Of course, there were worms and the duckies knew it!

After all gravel was unloaded, the finished pen looks great compared to the old dirt floor. Next, we will begin placing rubber mesh mats down for cushioning. (At this time the ducks and Lucy Goose are let out of the pen for breaks during the day as it is unreasonable to expect them to stand on these rocks for long periods of time.)

River rock like this DOES NOT SUFFICE for a duck pen substrate as it will severely damage your duck's feet. It must be covered with something.

King Augie Pays a Visit to Princess Fritz

2009-11-08T20:36:00.000-08:00

I can't say I know a lot of people who are privileged enough to experience a play date with ducks, but there are some duck people out there. When we find another duck person, it's time for a play date.

While visiting my friend M. at a pet store where he works, Phout and I met a woman, C., who has a Pekin pullet named Fritz who was waddling around in the pet room of the pet store without a care in the world. C. and I began chatting about ducks as a curious crowd gathered around Fritz who wore one of C.'s custom designed diaper harnesses. (C. later explained she's been perfecting the duck diaper harness for several months now.) So, even though I don't believe in fate, I still walked out of the pet store that day thinking, "I guess I was meant to go there today in order to meet C. and Fritz."

I soon connected with C. through an online social network where we were also involved in a duck lover's group. Fritz was featured in the group's album, strutting around in her diaper, lying casually on the back of C.'s sofa, and swimming in the lake with C.'s daughters. And, in a few weeks, C. contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in bringing some ducks over for a play date.

The next challenge was deciding who would go. I considered bringing a couple of ducks, but after a lot of thought I decided on Augie Duck. Like Fritz, Augie was heavily imprinted on humans and, after a lot of exposure to other ducks, finally got used to them. C. had informed me that Fritz thinks she's a human and that she's never met another duck.

Augie rode on my lap in his lavender basket. It was lightly raining as Phout decided to pull over and get some coffee. Augie and I remained in the car where he stood in his basket and quacked his hoarse drake quack every time he saw people moving about in the parking lot. Of course the woman who parked next to us had a huge smile on her face as she got out of her car and saw Augie looking through the window at her. He watched the raindrops run down the windshield and fluttered his wings (which I think is a sign of excitement, nervousness, cooling off...and/or all of these).

We drove a few more blocks and pulled up C.'s driveway for the first time. She waved from the window and soon Fritz was ambling down the ramp from the wrap-around porch and Augie was waddling up the ramp toward her. I began videotaping at this point, though nothing much happened. I don't think Fritz knew quite what to do and I think Augie knew enough not to step over his bounds at Fritz's castle.

It was a bit nippy outside, so C. invited us inside where we could watch Fritz and Augie watch each other. After a quick trip of 'ring-around-the-dining-table': Augie chasing after Fritz once around, they both settled and stood next to their humans. At one point Fritz launched herself from in front of C. in a move of dominance, that probably surprised Fritz herself, and landed with her stretched neck across my forearm and lap where she applied pressure. (Ducks are a lot like canines in this respect. They do have a flock hierarchy and at this moment Fritz had placed her neck over my lap/arm to show she was in charge.) However, in this case I am not certain whether Fritz was confused or not. Perhaps she didn't know quite how to react since Augie was the first duck she'd met. She may have thought it was a package deal, that Augie and I were one.

C. offered one of her homemade duck diapers to us to take home and adjust for Augie. We tried it on him, but he hasn't worn a diaper since ducklinghood, so he spent the next ten minutes yanking on it in a clear display of agitation. C. mentioned that she believes ducks can learn to get used to anything and that Augie will soon adjust to the diaper once we've altered it to fit him better. I told her he will be in the house cuddling up to me, watching a movie on my lap just like he did when he was a fuzz duckling.

After Fritz and Augie jumped up for lettuce treats, we returned to the outdoors where the ducks walked about the lawn. I remember the scene where both of their duck butts were facing us as they munched on grass and it reminded me of this field of pot belly pigs I used to pass on my way home from the university and how those pigs looked like a bunch of randomly placed Russett potatoes. And that's random, I know.

We discussed future play dates and who we ought to bring, deciding that, next time, Clyde, Ming, and Emily would have the chance to meet Fritz on a day when it wasn't raining. When we decided to return inside once again, Augie and Fritz followed us. Augie approached the sliding glass door to the kitchen and stretched his neck out long and peaked inside. After some nudging he entered where he was grudgingly forced into his diaper again, but this didn't last long as he fretted so much it was taking away from the enjoyment of his play date. He was set free of his diaper and received a lot of attention from C.'s kids and their friends. (It seems they hadn't seen a black duck before and commented about Augie's green iridescence and his long, sleek body.)

C. explained that she finds dog collars at the dollar store, cuts them, and uses them as the back strap on the duck diaper harnesses. Genius idea! And then we were introduced to Fritz's toy box filled with jangles and stuffed toys. Fritz even has her own Care Bear--she sleeps with it and knows it's hers! Fritz began tugging on the strings of a stuffed ball-like toy and C. explained that Fritz doesn't fetch yet, but she'll chase after her toys if they're thrown for her. Then Phout mentioned that he thinks ducks are a lot like dogs.

Until recently Fritz has enjoyed total freedom wandering about the extended front yard, attracting the attention of neighbors who have looked out for her as she's roamed about during the daylight hours, but Fritz took a longer walk one day which necessitates a secure enclosure to keep her safe when no one's home. At night Fritz sleeps in a corner of the kitchen behind a plastic barrier.

Fritz was born in May. She's the second duckling C. and her family have raised. The first, who had a neurological condition which caused him/her to spin in circles, suffocated when he was around one month old. C. found him lifeless, but was able to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, reviving him, but only for about twenty minutes. Unfortunately, he'd been without oxygen too long and passed away. And now there is happy, healthy, hearty Fritz with her mellow quack and her sturdy orange legs waddling about the yard and house, laying one large egg each day that C. bakes with-- each Fritz egg replaces two chicken eggs for the moistest carrot cake on the planet. Trust me, I enjoyed some!

The Play Date Video:

Little Ming Has His Day

2009-10-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

Everyone has his or her day, right? Whether they admit it or not, whether or not it's a formal occasion or something that happens to make the day stand out from most other days, everyone has a special day at some point, if not many points, during his or her lifetime. Today was Little Ming's special day--though it is quite possible his special day, from his perspective, occurred several days ago and there was no human around to bear witness.
Ming is a black Indian runner duck, a 2000+ year old breed native to Malaysia and the south Pacific. His parents live on a farm back in Oklahoma and he arrived at my house, one of eight auctioned eggs from eggbid.com, and one of only three that hatched, and one of two that lived, after incubating under a broody hen. To complicate matters from the beginning, I ordered the eggs during relatively cold weather and they arrived via postal service. This can decrease chance of hatching, because the eggs are exposed to cold more than if they were shipped during later spring months. And on top of all this, Ming's egg, when candled, showed signs of deformity. First of all, his egg contained an unusually large, malformed air sac. The air sac is located at the large end of the egg and provides oxygen for the fetus. Instead of taking up 1/4 of the egg, Ming's air sac took up 1/3 or more and it was not symmetrical, but rather stretched lengthwise along the egg in addition to filling the large end of the egg as is usual.
From the time of hatching there was something about Ming. He was a follower. His older half brother, Clyde, who turned out to be half wild mallard, was born two days earlier and an extremely active duckling, always running here and there, picking up strings, pecking Ming in his groggy face. As soon as Ming stood and began running around, it has been Ming and Clyde ever since. Until, of course, they met Lucy a gosling they immediately fell in love and snuggled with. My friend M. came over one day to sex Ming and Clyde and the first words out of his mouth were that the little all-black duckling had the biggest penis he'd ever seen. Of course this became a running joke as we watching Ming turn into his entertaining older self.

Ming never enjoyed the water as much as the other ducks. King Augie was a sea horse. Clyde dips and bathes, diving and splashing and chasing goldfish under water. But, Ming? He struggles to get into the pool. If he's helped into the pool, he immediately hops out. His skinny neck, which I might add is slightly crooked (this seems to be from the way he was squished in the egg around the deformed air sac), turns left and right as he takes tiny running steps beneath an erect body. He runs in the opposite direction of the pool, looks left, then right, then left, then right, then turns around and jogs back to the pool where he starts to pull grass, acting as if he never wanted in the water to begin with. If, perchance, he does get in the pool, he's formed the habit of pushing the other ducks with his bill so that they vacate the pool, leaving him all alone where he dips tiny dips and flutters his wings delicately.
I've always thought of him as "poor Little Ming" for these reasons and more. After Lucy Goose arrived (she was hatched a couple of weeks after Ming and Cyde) she was kept in a laundry basket with Ming and Clyde during nap time where the three of them peeped and cuddled. One day Ming was settled on the bottom of the basket, Clyde was doing something else, and Lucy was standing up with her butt in Ming's face. Suddenly a string of poop, like a strip of thick yarn, glided out of her butt, the start of it resting on Ming's right cheek, and as it came out slowly it followed a path along Ming's face so that both of his eyes were covered, and he was blindfolded, completely, by Lucy's turd. Ming, still resting, began a bewildered cheeping--that lost duckling sound, like a car alarm, that means where are you? Oh, where are you? Don't leave me here!

   Yes, I laughed, but took note of this occurrence, forever using it to mark the many following circumstances that seemed to point toward a tough life for Little Ming. Soon Ming, Augie, and Clyde grew up, molted their youth feathers, and approached sexual maturity with what seemed to be a bit of obvious confusion. For one thing, the only female around, besides myself, was Lucy Goose. Ming clung to her as if she was his mama. He tried to snuggle beneath her wings, even when her wings were like stunted T-rex claws. Then as she grew bigger he followed her everywhere and my friends and I began joking about this Steve Irkle-type runner duck who worshipped a big white mama goose. It seemed like Ming had decided Lucy was his.
   The next unfortunate occurrence in Ming's life was the onset of a condition called angel or dropped wing. The wings twist and begin to grown outward from the body. In Ming's case the wings were taped several times, which managed to correct most of the condition, except for a few feathers that have never stayed in place beneath the others. Angel wing is either genetic or can be caused by feeding a poultry food that is higher than 16% protein.
   But, then Augie started mating with Lucy in the pool. It is difficult to say exactly when Ming became most confused, or if he had always been, but it was apparent that he did not mate with Lucy as he never attempted it in the pool and the closest he came was to approach her out of the water and place his head on her back in what appeared to be a move toward domination. There was no way he could climb on top, so for him to try it seemed ridiculous.
   One day all was peaceful until Augie started chasing Ming. Ming ran around the yard with his mouth open, which is the posture of a duck who is saying, Back off and leave me alone! Augie caught up with him and grabbed the back of his neck, throwing him face-first on the lawn where he, Augie, then mounted him, his big webbed feet flattened on Ming's back as Ming screamed in his hoarse drake voice.

   So for a couple of months I would see this once in a while--Ming running from either Augie or Clyde, two adolescents in sexual overdrive who were practicing their moves. (Some may ask whether or not actual penetration occurred and I can say, from what I saw, that no, it did not. It seems unusual for the drakes to achieve penetration even with hens when they are out of water.) I would have been relieved had Ming chased Augie and Clyde, in turn, but this never happened--he was always the one screaming and running away.
   Soon the Quack Squad (seven ducklings) grew up enough to mingle with Augie, Ming, Lucy, and Clyde. They went from fuzz balls to feathered adolescents dappled with down on their necks and sides. Long before sexual maturity, a particular girl, a black runner named Mary, began courting Augie and Clyde. This has gone on for over a month and a half now--even though she was not even close to sexual maturity. So, Augie and Clyde began mating with Mary. And within a month the other females began courting the males, too. But there was something different about Little Ming.
   The girls who approached Ming were sharply discouraged by his biting bill as he'd continue dabbling in the mud or walking about aimlessly, ignoring their advances. When in the pool Ming would run them out, send them scattering out onto the lawn, and then he'd start to bathe, delicately, alone in the pool. I watched him day in and day out, nudging flirtatious girls out of his path, sometimes seeming to mistake Augie for a female, too. He'd sneak up, walking on his runner tip-toes, on a grazing pullet and peck her in the bum. In turn the pullet would do a 180, surprisingly nimble, into the air and waddle away.
   Poor Little Ming! Would he always be alone, on the outskirts of the flock, just a lost doodle, his head turning left and then right as he jogged through the yard aimlessly? Not today!

Today I saw Mary flatten herself, chirping invitations under her duckie breath as Ming circled her, stepped right on her neck, and stood there--on Mary's neck--for a long moment wearing his DUH! face before finally climbing on her back. She let out the usual QUACK! QUAAAAACK! QUAAAAAAAAACK! while Ming balanced himself and then, in one stiff movement, collapsed to the side, on the ground, as if he were suddenly turned to stone, or a decoy. (This is what the drakes do after mating.) Next he was on his feet, his head pointed forward as if streamlined in flight, running around in circles, this way and that, across the yard, and then back to the pool where he jumped in and began splashing wildly.
Today was Little Ming's day!

Keep Calm; Carry On! Video II: Mellow Moments

2009-10-17T01:49:00.001-07:00

Project Keep Calm; Carry On! Video I: Relax

2009-10-16T23:28:00.001-07:00

The first in a series of nature videos designed to help the busy animal lover unwind at the end of a long day.

Duckdroids: They Live Among Us

2009-10-16T19:51:00.001-07:00

Lucy Goose's Eye Infection

2009-10-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

Animals are a big responsibility. They are living creatures who have feelings and are capable of suffering. I do my best to stay in tune to their needs, so when I was out in the duck pen during the afternoon of September 29, 2009 and noticed that Lucy's left eye looked lavender--even the white part of her eye, I had to inspect closer. I held her beak in my hand and tipped her head to the side. Her third eye (an eyelid that covers her eye so she can still see under water and not close her eyes) kept closing repeatedly over a glazed eye. It reminded me of the time I suffered a corneal abrasion--the cloudy film and the obvious discomfort in the light.

Oh, no! was all I could think. What am I going to do now?

I called an exotics veterinarian out in Spokane Valley who could see her the next day. All we could do then was wait overnight. I enlisted the help of my sister, Emma, (a true life saver) and the next day we drove out to the veterinarian who examined Lucy's eye with a bright light after applying some sort of eye numbing drops.

But, they just couldn't figure out what it was. They said it looked as if there was a foreign body embedded in her eye, in the corner, near the inside edge of the cornea. But they just couldn't see it well enough. Lucy needed to see the animal ophthalmologist.

Luckily they got us into their busy clinic the very next day. Poor Lucy Goose! Though she doesn't mind riding in the back of my Mazda Tribute (on a tarp), her eye obviously hurt. I wanted to alleviate her suffering as soon as possible.

After some time in the waiting room, where Emma and I heard stories from the owner of a Boston terrier, we were called into the back. I went out to get Lucy, while Emma held the doors for me. We put Lucy on the examination table and she squirted a slingshot poop out her hind end, just missing Emma, save for a small speck. At least it wasn't the green kind! That was the day before--at the other veterinary office.

The ophthalmologist examined Lucy's eye just as had been done the day before. The conclusion was that some foreign body was lodged in her eye. She evidently poked her eye on something sharp, presumably wire (because I found a piece of wire sticking out of the fence when I got home), and then her own body created a deposit of firm material that was sticking out of the wound. This material was clogging the wound, causing the infection to develop inside. If not removed, Lucy could lose her eye. She would be blind in her left eye forever.

The ophthalmologist suggested sedating her, scraping the part of the eye with the puncture wound out, so that the eye could heal anew. I moved Lucy to the operating room table, where she squirted a poop on the young veterinary intern's shirt before they could fit her with the mask and administer gas to put her to sleep. At one point the veterinary assistant said she was trying not to let me pass out, too. In my obliviousness I did not realize I was breathing it. I just said, "Oh, yes, I can smell it, too!"

Dunt-duh-duh!

Lucy's body slowly relaxed in my arms as she fell asleep. At this point, Emma and I agreed to go to the cafe next door and await the final results.

We sat down for coffee and Hawaiian sandwiches (mine was delicious with just fresh veggies, cream cheese, and pineapple) and waited for the ophthalmologist to return with post-op news. And he soon did.

He said something like this:

Lucy is just fine. We went in there and scraped the material out, so her eye will be a little sore, but she can take the metacam oral gel for another two days, but no longer than that as she would have to come in for a blood test to check her kidneys and liver. I'm giving you Ofloxacin Ophthalmic Solution USP 0.3% to put in her eye three times per day for ten days. She's awake now and ready to go home. Oh, and she laid an egg!

She laid an egg? Lucy Goose is only in her first year. She was born in the spring, so hasn't even seen her first spring as an adult yet. She's not, according to everyone who knows about geese, supposed to lay an egg until spring of 2010. But, apparently, as she awoke they heard a Ping! on the operating table and there was Lucy's first egg.

They wrapped the egg in a warm blanket and put it in a box, offering a bag of warm solution for the ride home. But, I informed them that it wasn't fertilized, so no need to keep it warm.

Lucy began feeling better, as indicated by her behaviors, right away. She wanted out of the duck yard so she could eat grass and she ravished my hair with her chewing frenzies. I measured the size of her egg against a turkey egg from last year and, despite everyone thinking the turkey egg might be bigger, Lucy's egg was much larger.

It is now a couple of weeks after the eye injury incident and Lucy is as good as new. She has not lost her eye and the injury was not over the pupil area, so it has not damaged her eyesight. Also, Lucy has not laid another egg which leaves me to wonder if it was only the trauma of the eye pain which caused her to produce an egg. Soon after returning home she did build a nest in the chest house out in the duck yard, but The Doodles quickly messed it up and she's not made another.

Total cost of eye injury: $388.05 after $200.00 discount. Lucy Goose thanks her Auntie Em for the I.O.U.

Quack-Quack! Honk! Winterize Me!

2009-10-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

Last winter for the Inland Northwest was something else. News reports announced that record snowfall paralyzed Spokane. Records have been kept since 1881 and last year there was 17 inches of snowfall within a twenty-four hour period. The question is will it happen again? One thing is for certain, it wasn't this cold this early last year. It's barely October and there's ice on the ground, the duck pool is frozen over each morning, and Augie March -- King of Doodles can see his own breath. So how do we prepare for what is to come, however cold it may become?

Weatherproofing the duck coop took place today. I started by removing the old straw from the coop and replacing it with deep, new straw. Most of this will not need much changing for a while, except in places where it becomes wet, like around the water source. Musty straw and feed is a danger to waterfowl due to a fungus called Aspergillis. Throughout the winter wet straw will need to be cleared out. The duck coop used to be the chicken coop. The perch and nesting boxes have been removed as the ducks and Lucy Goose have no use for them. All insulation has been covered with plyboard.

It took one large bale of straw to furnish the entire coop with a layer deep enough to nearly reach the top of my muck boots. Some of this straw was placed in another duck pen at the far end of the duck yard--a place where the Doodles like to gather and hang out throughout the day. I spread the straw everywhere, but did not place much around the watering area. The watering area I changed out from a regular water container to a heated water dispenser. The dispenser is placed on a board stabilized atop two cinder blocks and the cord runs up the side of the coop (covered by a piece of baseboard) and along the ceiling to a hole that leads outside to a power strip that's affixed beneath the eves of the coop. The power strip can be turned off or on from the outside and all of the fixtures can be plugged or unplugged as well. (It is possible I will have to place protective wire or another board in front of the remaining piece of cord.) In addition, the coop has two heat lamps equipped with infrared bulbs (night time bulbs) which I have protected with chicken wire so that the goose with her large wingspan does not knock the lamps down, which could cause a fire.

The coop is ventilated in several places. Usually it is beneficial to ventilate at the north and south ends. Augie's coop is ventilated in the north west corner, along the south west wall, and on the southern wall. Each night the door is blocked with a large board with a cinder block placed in front of it. Ducks and geese are considered cold hardy and are supposed to be much more tolerant of the cold than chickens who often suffer from frost burn which can claim their toes and combs. I have seen geese standing amidst a blizzard, their heads tucked beneath their wing, standing on one foot. Still, I'm not taking any chances. I always consider myself ignorant because I do not know the options these birds would have if they had more choices, so I try to create the best environment I can--better than what they would have if they were wild. Too often I think people make the mistake of leaving their pet waterfowl caged in a garage on the coldest nights. It is a sad affair for the family to discover their beloved pet frozen to death in the morning.

It is inevitable that the duck yard/aviary will be snowed in. I keep a shovel handy in order to remove the snow as it accumulates. Since the entire aviary is covered in chicken wire, this must also be shaken of snow throughout the winter so it does not collapse. This is the duck's first winter, so I don't know how much they will come out, but I figure they will be out every day, unlike the chickens. The chickens hardly left the coop for weeks last winter, even though I shoveled a path in the snow. The aviary contains several other shelters, including a lean-to of driftwood in which there is an old tire stuffed with straw, a stall shed with sheet metal roof where their main feeder is located, and an extra large trunk, the top replaced with a door on hinges that can be lifted up if need be. This trunk is a favorite shelter. I often find the ducks snuggled up to each other within, or come across bowl-shaped nests the Lucy Goose has made.

Augie March, Lucy, and the Doodles are ready for a deep freeze. After fixing up their coop for the winter, I spent some time watching them play around the old trunk shed. Unfortunately, Beetle has broken one of her little toes (inside toe/left foot) and she's limping. I picked her up and examined her foot. The toe is swollen. If she gets worse I will bring her inside. Keep her immobile until it heals. I figure it is a lot like us humans--we break a toe and have to wait for it to heal.

Olga stops to eat at the main outdoor feeder which sits beneath the shelter of a sheet metal roof shed.

Augie stands proudly in front of the trunk shelter where the Doodles have settled in after I added fresh straw.

Noi flirts with the drakes (you can see her in the background bowing her head) as they chatter at me.

Waterfowl Pets Q & A: Ask and I will answer (or I will ask Augie)

2009-10-09T17:44:00.000-07:00

This post is updated with new questions and answers as they are received, because the curiosity of others is my instructor.

1. How much land is needed per duck?

That depends on the management system you have in place. If they have access to your yard at times during the day...with supervision, then you can keep more of them because they can get out and run around more often--particularly if you are home all the time to tend to them like I am. Some municipal codes state that one needs, for example, 500 sq ft. per duck. In a duck coop, if they are penned due to cold or overnight, it is recommended they have 3-4 sq ft. per duck. Not all breeds require water for swimming, but for those, like wood ducks, who require it, they recommend 10 sq ft. of swimming area per duck. Runner ducks, however, do not require swimming areas, though they do enjoy it. Ming, the little guy in this photo, rarely, if ever, swims. He dips his head in the water and then proceeds to run around on the lawn like he's in the water. Ducks have a routine which basically goes as follows: eat/mate, frolick (in or out of water), bathe, preen and groom, sleep. They almost always sleep after preening and grooming--this is their least active time. It is said to be difficult to make ducks active once they have settled in to preen. So it is ok for them to spend some time in an enclosure, for this is their eating/preening time, but they love it when the yard gate opens and they have time in the yard.

2. Shanti how many ducks do you have?

I have ten ducks: 4 drakes (quiet) and 6 pullets (loud). And one Toulouse/Embden goose (quiet). (This does not mean that geese are quiet or all duck pullets/hens are loud. This is the case with my animals. Each one has it's own volume control.)

3. Do they take air trips?

They have been taking short air trips of about three feet lately. The Indian runners do not fly and the Cayugas are simply too heavy with a short wingspan. Neither are flying breeds. But, some do fly, like the little Call ducks and the other species of duck from S. America called the Muscovy. Muscovies have tremendous wingspans, but they are quiet and affable and can easily be taught to play fetch and other games. My goose, Lucy, who is a Toulouse/Embden cross, stretches her wings and runs about, but she does not fly either. She is a domestic barnyard goose.

4. I love watching your fowl family grow! Tell me, where are their ears?

Their ears are located on the sides of their heads, buried beneath their feathers. If you visit a pet store and see a bearded dragon, or most other lizards, you will see two open holes, one on each side of their heads--these are their ears. It is one more clue to the fact that birds are close relatives of reptiles--their ears are in the same place as lizard ears.

5. My friend recently asked me, "Shanti, do you turn the straw in the duck coop?"

Yes. I have a pitch fork I use to turn the straw in the duck coop. The coop has a cement floor, which is probably not the best type of floor to have; however, I put a thick layer of straw down. The real issue is the water container which sits atop a couple of cinder blocks with a thick board as a support shelf. During the night the duckies have a fun time in their water so that the area around the water container becomes a soupy mess of straw. Beneath the straw, on the floor, the water combines with other elements like poop and turns into ammonia if it is not constantly cleaned. The solution, so far, that's working best consists of a plastic sled placed along the shelf where the water container is located. I put straw beneath it and then straw inside it so the ducks do not slip as they enter and exit the coop. (The sled is something they have to walk on to get in and out.) This way the sled catches most of the water they splash around during the late night and wee hours of morning. I can easily remove and replace the straw. This takes care of the formation of ammonia in this one area. The packed down straw that has been pooped on must be bagged and removed quite frequently and replaced with fresh straw in order to prevent ammonia build-up. It's a constant chore and one that has to be taken seriously as ammonia fumes are toxic and unhealthy.

6. What are healthy treats for ducks?
Healthy treats consist of dark green leafy vegetables like spinach, kale, and broccoli. If you begin feeding your ducks particular foods, even edible weeds, at a young age they may grow up to like that food. For example, some people give their ducks peas, watermelon, and even carrots. Only some of my ducks will touch carrots, most won't touch watermelon, and only a couple like peas, but they love a particular weed that grows in my yard and can't get enough of spinach.

My ducks won't touch bread. Bread is bad for them anyway as it lacks nutritional value. You will often see people feeding bread to ducks in the park. This is a bad thing to do as it interrupts migratory patterns for wild mallards and other waterfowl who will end up sticking around during harsh winters because they're used to the easy bread meals. Unfortunately, many then freeze to death.

If you see ducklings or domestic waterfowl at a local park be aware that they are unequipped to survive the winter and were dumped by irresponsible humans. These domestic birds need to be rescued and placed in a forever home where they will be properly housed and fed.

7. What kind of plants can I put in a waterfowl pen?

http://www.waterfowl.org.uk/docs/plants_and_pens.pdf

On the Road with Waterfowl (Pet ducks and a goose)

2009-10-08T18:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Augie rode passenger side in a laundry basket in my lap as Phout drove us to Big R, so King Augie could oversee the selection of layer pellets for his flock. It was his second trip back to Big R, the place where we bought him when he was about two days old. Augie poked his head through the top of the laundry basket, which is made from flexible plastic and I will refer to it as his travel basket from now on, as I meandered toward the poultry food aisle. He didn't struggle to get out--just sat calmly, once in a while making eye contact with me and speaking in his hoarse, but calm, drake voice.

First let me say that this was definitely not Augie March's first car ride. Since he fit in my hand he has accompanied me, though less often lately, on both short and long trips in the vehicle. In the beginning I kept him in a black felt nap sack with a drawstring at the top. It was both warm and dark--something I could easily tuck inside my jacket for it was still early March when he was hatched and too cold for him to be exposed to the elements as we ran errands. His tiny poops were still at that stage where they were easy to deal with: simply let them dry and dump the bag in a trash container. Tink! Tink!

I recall being in the waiting room of a car stereo merchant, Augie tucked away in his drawstring nap sack, the only other patron being a woman with a toy dog. She struck up a conversation with me right away. For those months when he accompanied me everywhere, his presence was an ice breaker. People were amazed when they'd stare at the nap sack, probably wondering what was inside, only to see a duckling poke his head out. They'd often say they expected a puppy or a kitten. But a duck? No one expected a duck.

On a whim, in early April, I packed Ming, Clyde, and Lucy (2 runner ducks and a goose) into a large dog crate, and Augie (the King Cayuga himself) in his periwinkle travel basket, and headed to Kalispell, Montana to spend a week with my cousin Shellie. (As a side note I also had two Rottweilers in the very back of my vehicle.)

So, imagine, just me, two Rottweilers, a gosling, and three ducklings in a Mazda Tribute. I stopped at a rest stop east of Fourth of July Pass, refilled the animals' water, let the dogs out to pee, and it was back on the road again. Dusk crept up as we drove through Paradise and I pulled into a turn-off about five miles past Hot Springs and watched the sunset. When I finally arrived at Shellie's, it was late, and quite a chore settling all of my companions into one room together for the night (the dogs and waterfowl do not get along). And, yes, it does become smelly after several hours on the road with a small flock of waterfowl. I used wee pads, meant for puppies, and changed them frequently.

In the morning my cousin Shellie awoke to the pitter-patter of duck-/gosling feet and Lucy's "Vee-vee-vee!" and Ming, Clyde, and Augie's "Ai! Ai! Ai! Ai!" whenever I walked out of sight. The next week was spent juggling waterfowl and dogs--taking Newman and Betti for walks and then letting the waterfowl out into the yard where I could supervise them closely as I made earrings. They enjoyed being near the lounge chairs and often rested there, next to me, never straying far. Several hawks circled overhead on many occasions, which is why I never left them alone--not even to run into the house for a glass of water. Each time I went in, I put them all into their crates. (I had to run to PetCo and get a small carrier with a locking door for Augie, since I still kept him separate from Ming and Clyde when they were enclosed.)

I also discovered, during this retreat, that Augie wants whatever I have, beginning, to my surprise, with my jewelry-making tools. While sitting on the grass, bending wire, Augie would sneak up and snatch whatever he could find: scissors, wire cutters, bags of feathers, beads, etc. I got up and down enough to have completed a set of aerobics by the time I was finished with my task. Each time he approached I thought he surely wouldn't be able to grab anything 'from that distance' or 'from that position', but he'd snatch and run. I found it entertaining, but quickly had to secure my beads and small pieces of wire so that he could not injure himself.

About halfway through the week, I loaded the dogs and waterfowl into the Mazda again and set out for Glacier National Park (about forty five minutes from Shellie's). The park was closed right after the lodge, but I wanted to take photos along the shore of Lake McDonald. At one point I pulled up in the parking lot in front of the dock in Apgar Village and took Augie out of his travel basket. I placed him on the ground and proceeded to walk to the beach. Augie waddled close behind. That's when a park ranger approached in his truck, rolled down the window, and said, "What are you planning to do with that duck?"

"I'm taking him down to the lake to see if he'd like to swim," I said. "But it might be too cold for him."

"For a duck?" the ranger said.

"He's a city duck who's not used to the cold."

I was thinking during this conversation that the ranger thought I was going to 'set him free' or something, but I tend to remain cool and collected during most confrontations, so Augie and I kept walking slowly in the direction we were headed.

"Won't he fly away," the ranger said.

"No," I said.

"Why? Are his wings clipped?"

"No. He's a domestic duck. His breed is too heavy to fly."

(I'm unable to comment about the ranger--what he looked like, except that he was male--because I noticed his truck more than I noticed him. I tend to do this--notice objects more than people.)

"What kind of duck is he?"

"He's a Cayuga created in upstate New York, named after the Native American tribe."

"Well, have a nice day!"

And that was it. The ranger drove away, but another vehicle had pulled up, a mini van, with a woman inside. She sat there, probably watching us. Perhaps it was the most fascinating thing she'd seen that day, besides the backdrop of Lake McDonald. Somewhere deep inside I felt a part of the lake, the land that is known as Glacier National Park, because all the while, in my mind, I was imagining the fire of 1929 when my Grandma Betty was twelve years old and they all went out on the dock to avoid the flames. I'm sure it wasn't the same dock, but it is the same lake, though my grandmother and all of those ancestors have passed away now. I knew the ranger wouldn't be asking me about my duck if it were the 1920s during the time my grandma frolicked in the icy cold water, when my great-granddad Mart was a well-known stone mason and friend of Eddie Brewster and cowboy artists Bug (Ace) Powell, and Charlie Russell. My family was here before Glacier National Park existed, before President Taft signed a bill to declare it a National Park in 1910. Mart lived on the Blackfeet Reservation and, later, my grandma attended school there, on the east side of the mountains, in Browning--which is still the Blackfeet Reservation today.

The day was cool enough for a black Gogol Bordello hoodie as I neared the shore where pebble-flecked sand crunched beneath my feet and the clear lapping water always causes me to wonder why my family ever moved away (though our family owns a cabin right next to the ranger cabin, nestled in the woods directly across from Apgar Village--but I don't know that side of the family well and am not privy to spend the night there). Augie approached the water, making satisfied sounds, and began dabbling.

The rocks in Lake McDonald are amazing, though I doubt Augie gave it much thought, for the area was once beneath a vast and deep ocean--there are still fossil sea creatures found at the tops of the mountains within the park.

Our excursion was short-lived, however, as a flock of wild waterfowl took off from a nearby beach which Augie reacted to by raising the feathers on top of his head, letting out a long, hoarse "Mwe-eck!" and running toward the Mazda in the parking lot. This time I followed him. He became spooked by everything and ducked quickly beneath the car as a crow flew overhead. When I opened the passenger door, Augie came out from hiding and waited for me to pick him up and put him in his travel basket. I was surprised at how quickly Augie retreated when he became nervous, how he knew exactly where the car was parked, and flattered that he sought safety in my company.

After this I drove to nearby Lake Five, outside of West Glacier (Belton as it was called in my grandparent's day), to see Lake Five, featured in many childhood stories my grandma told, for the first time. It was still cold with ice on the lake in places. Ducks were floating here and there. I wondered what it was like for my grandma when she was a teenager, splashing off the dock on summer nights. I imagined I could almost hear the shouts, echoes in the dark, of those long-ago voices, reactions to cold water on bare flesh, perhaps after a sip or two of moonshine.

I looked over and there was Augie and he said, "Mweck! Mweck!" in his juvenile drake's voice. My ancestors probably never imagined I'd be here, thinking of them, attempting to reconstruct some of their living faces from eighty to one hundred year old photographs, imagine their voices, the splashing sounds their bodies made in such a distant past. But I still wondered if they ever thought of the idea of me, so far in the future, looking out across their playground, yearning for what they had. I will never know. There is a stillness that accompanies such excursions as this one. Me, alone, except for my animal companions, looking across a century that, perhaps, some wealthy tourists have now laid claim to with their vacation homes.

On that day I shared my experience, most closely, with Augie March who would, yet unknown, become the King of Doodles. There we were, on the road, like a traveling circus. People would think we were nuts. Wait, people would think I was nuts. After all, what does a duck have to do with making such decisions? Ducks don't pack up the car and drive hundreds of miles.

I don't sit around and think of this experience often. It's not sentimental to me, but I am not a sentimental person most of the time. I suppose in the future it will mean something to me that Augie March was there, in the front seat, talking to me as I had intimate thoughts about the people who are the reason I exist. Most people don't experience this with a duck, much less a car filled with waterfowl and Rottweilers, both. But I did.

The Company of Waterfowl and Konrad Lorenz's King Solomon's Ring

2009-10-06T21:45:00.000-07:00

(I'm reading an addition published in 1952 that is illustrated by the author and with a foreward by Julian Huxley.)

All the time I am asked questions about my ducks and goose. Often these questions accompany statements of surprise, because people generally do not consider waterfowl as individuals. They are baffled that Augie March, my Cayuga drake--who is the most heavily imprinted of my flock--has his own preferences in food, let's me know by nibbling my sleeve when he's hungry, and loves to go for car rides while sitting in a laundry basket that's on my lap. Or that Lucy my Embden/Toulouse goose unties some of the tightest knots or that she is gentle and quiet. Little Ming, a black Indian runner drake hatched from eggs I ordered from eggbid.com last winter, has never had a girlfriend because he does not know how to approach hens.

I am not alone in my fascination with ducks and geese. What began with a few chickens over a year ago, has evolved into a small waterfowl sanctuary. I've joined the ranks of hundreds, if not thousands, of backyard fowl fanciers and folks who value their birds not for meat, but for their companionship. It was during a typical day of research that I happened upon several Konrad Lorenz videos on YouTube.com, one of which Lorenz was filmed allowing a goose to affectionately chew on his hair and, in another, calling to a flock of geese who landed nearby and then began following him.

I soon learned that Lorenz is know for his experiments involving greylag geese. His love for animals and his keen observations, though presented fifty or more years ago, remain true today. (If you have waterfowl pets and read King Solomon's Ring, you will, perhaps, feel the book is as fresh today as it was in 1952.) So it is not a surprise that I am thoroughly enjoying King Solomon's Ring. Furthermore, I tend to do things a little backwards. Most people would assume I am already familiar with Lorenz, but the only Lorenz book I have ever read is Man Meets Dog back in 1998. At the time I was training my two Rottweiler puppies, Greta and Lou. It was a charming, insightful book, but I had no idea Lorenz was interested in waterfowl and I, at the time, had not tapped into that buried childhood interest in waterfowl yet. Perhaps that is why I didn't dig deeper into Lorenz's world after reading Man Meets Dog.

My experiences of childhood will always be a part of who I am: springs spent imprinting chicks and ducks; holding the beautiful gosling we raised when I was five; observing a flock of Canada geese my granddad purchased from someone and let loose on my pond until their clipped wings molted and grew back and they took to the sky, never to be seen again. These memories fuel my current desire to live with waterfowl, despite the limitations of my backyard and the extra work this entails. It is from childhood that I share common ponds with Lorenz and am just now picking up where I left off when I was about ten years old and we relocated from our land, and my pond, to a small town. I never looked back until recently, because I didn't think it was possible to do so unless I was living on over one hundred acres (or about forty two hectares) as I had during childhood.

Lorenz begins his journey in a logical manner, calling the first chapter of King Solomon's Ring "Animals as a nuisance", for it is always a good idea, in my opinion, that the cuteness and fairy tale existence some people imagine when they see other humans coexisting with such unusual companions as waterfowl be confronted with simple truths. These simple truths bring to light realities people do not often consider when they see a cute gosling or duckling during such times as Easter when there is the urge to purchase these little creatures as fillers for Easter baskets. According to Lorenz, one's willingness to bear with this darker side (of animals) is the measure of one's love for animals. Lorenz manages to highlight some of the eccentric moments that come about living alongside animals and he does so in a humorous way. Keep in mind that Lorenz's waterfowl, and other birds, had free reign of the beautiful property in Austria that was donated for his continued research after retirement. In most backyard settings today, especially within city limits, animals must be contained at least part of the time for their own safety. That is why being in Lorenz's shoes must have been wonderful and it is not uncommon for people today to have the land and capabilities to live as he did, but I think it rare that they do. While they may have seclusion and land, waterfowl and ponds, they do not spend so many hours observing, recording, filming, photographing, and writing about individual birds, especially not over long periods of time.

A passage from the first chapter, second paragraph of King Solomon's Ring, often represented in descriptions of the book:

Or what other wife would tolerate a cockatoo who bit off all the buttons from the washing hung up to dry in the garden, or allow a greylag goose to spend the night in the bedroom and leave in the morning by the window? (Greylag geese cannot be housetrained.)

Lorenz's philosophy is based on the idea that "one can only get to know the higher and mentally active animals by letting them move about freely" and I can attest that the behavior of my waterfowl is far different when, each day, sometimes several times a day, the door of their pen is opened and they are released into the lush grass of my backyard, than when they are in their pens. Whenever I step out the back door they are lined up, ten ducks and one goose, hens quacking and the goose letting forth a few Gung! Gungs! to get my attention, for it is time to let them out! They want me to know this. Once I open the door, the fun begins. Clyde, an Indian runner/mallard cross (half brother to Ming) circles around my feet, poking at my shoelaces with his bill as I walk across the yard. Lucy the goose spreads her giant wings and runs, wings flapping, across the grass, honking a triumphant honk. The Doodles (or Quack Squad), consisting of seven ducks I ordered from Nature's Hatchery, hatched on July 8, 2009, run waddling in a big circle to my right, the pullets quacking, and a certain precocious pullet, Mary, a black Indian runner, signals with repeated head bobs to one side as she cackles alongside Clyde or Augie March, my heavily imprinted Cayuga drake, that she wants them to mate her. And then, there's beautiful Ming---poor little fellow, you may think. His skinny legs stretch straight down from his erect body as he darts this way and that, his head turning back and forth as if he does not know which way he is supposed to run. A few of his left wing feathers jut out from the side of his body due to a case of dropped wing (angel wing) we were not able to completely correct with wrapping. He has no girlfriend and it seems he doesn't know the first thing about finding one as he approaches the pullets sneakily, like a vampire, stretches his skinny, slightly crooked neck out, and nibbles on her tail feathers. This only sends a pullet into a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon leap sideways before she runs off and Ming is left alone again. I believe this is what Lorenz means, on page 2, when he says "how incredibly alert, amusing and interesting is the same animal in complete freedom".

I've learned many details about my ducks and goose through countless hours of observation. Their personalities are like stories. Each day I read a few pages and learn more. Sometimes I turn back the pages and realize I was wrong. Other times I find that my assumptions, based on what I've seen or heard through observation, were correct. Often I have patiently figured their language out on my own, as if it were a discovery I have, for the very first time in all of history, made; other times I do a research.

And, yes, they are messy. Ducks make cereal--out of everything! I remember when they were still fuzzy quackers in their brooder. I would wake up in the morning to fecal splatters on the walls of the brooder, and if they had a particularly hearty appetite during the night, dried crumbles stuck to furniture located at least three feet away. Each time I fill their pools with fresh water I can count on checking a half hour later to find a dark brown muddy swamp. This is because they dabble in mud, mixing mud with water that they carry in small amounts inside their bills. They travel back and forth, from the pool to the mud, mixing this cereal, searching for earth worms and roots in the mud. They can turn a healthy lawn into a series of holes. If one did not know there were ducks around, it would be easy to think a child went crazy with a lawn aerator or, perhaps, mega-earthworms have evolved after having been exposed to growth hormones in the city's sewage system. The mud and poop are, by far, the biggest challenges, but for a person who sees past this, and is willing to do a lot of cleaning, who recognizes an individual behind those glistening round eyes and rubbery bill, it is all worth it.

After discussing his wife's efforts to keep greylag geese out of the garden, Lorenz tells the following story:

Unfortunately, my father largely undid all of my wife's efforts in goose education. The old gentleman was very fond of the geese and he particularly liked the ganders for their courageous chivalry; so nothing could prevent him from inviting them, each day, to tea in his study adjoining the glass veranda. As, at this time, his sight was already failing, he ony noticed the material result of such a visit when he trod right into it. One day, as I went into the garden, towards the evening, I found, to my astonishment, that nearly all the grey geese were missing. Fearing the worst, I ran to my father's study and what did I see? On the beautiful Persian carpet stood twenty-four geese, crowded round the old gentleman who was drinking tea at his desk, quietly reading the newspaper and holding out to the geese one piece of bread after another.

Lorenz also tells many humorous tales of imprinting. For those who are unfamiliar with imprinting, it is the process by which a hatchling fowl is "imprinted" on a human. When a hatchling emerges from an egg, it will often become attached to the first being it sees and/or hears. After imprinting occurs the duckling/gosling will follow the individual it has imprinted on. That's why sometimes one sees videos of ducklings following dogs. Lorenz spent many years studying the imprinting behavior of ducks and geese.

In the chapter titled Laughing At Animals, Lorenz recounts the following tale:

The ducklings, in contrast to the greylag goslings, were most demanding and tiring charges, for, imagine a two-hour walk with such children, all the time squatting low and quacking without interruption! In the interests of science I submitted myself literally for hours on end to this ordeal. So it came about, on a certain Whit-Sunday, that, in company with my ducklings, I was wandering about, squatting and quacking, in a May-green meadow at the upper part of our garden. I was congratulating myself on the obedience and exactitude with which my ducklings came waddling after me, when I suddenly looked up and saw the garden fence framed by a row of dead-white faces: a group of tourists was standing at the fence and staring horrified in my direction. Forgivable! For all they could see was a big man with a beard dragging himself, crouching, around in the meadow, in figures of eight, glancing constantly over his shoulder and quacking--but the ducklings, the all-revealing and all-explaining ducklings were hidden in the tall spring grass from the view of the astonished crowd.

In another tale, Lorenz is dressed in a black, furry devil's costume, complete with a hanging tongue, long tail, and mask in order to disguise himself from young jackdaws so they would not be shy of the "actual" Lorenz later on, as he needed to put aluminum rings on their legs. A large crowd had gathered in the village street. Instead of removing the mask and risking discovery, he "gave a friendly wag" of his "devil's tail and disappeared through the trapdoor of the loft".

Who cannot adore the adventures of this man? Need I say more? I will. Lorenz does not write exclusively about birds. In another chapter he discusses ecosystems in stand-alone fish tanks and the mating behaviors of Siamese fighting fish and European sticklebacks. In future chapters, to consider a few, that I have yet to read, he discusses "the enormous sensitivity of various animals to certain minute movements of expression", stories about canines and shrews, and a chapter that looks into submission and aggression.

I will conclude here, because I have only read 1/4 of the book and am excited to return to it. Perhaps you will find a copy yourself, come back to my blog, and share your thoughts. I'd very much like that as I believe it is beneficial and important for waterfowl lovers to know they are not alone.