Sitting Duck

In summer, there is an auction on Saturday mornings in the town of Woodville. It is a livestock auction, not an antique auction so wear rubber boots and not dressy “I’m out in the country for the day” looking swish shoes which should never have to navigate a mud bog, slippery uphill climb, or heaven forbid...any pile of assorted critter poop.

If you take your children with you, pack your steeliest resolve and firmest “Nay-saying” voice or you will be bringing home with you every sad-eyed, thinnish, needs a good home, save the donkeys, oh aren’t they really cute” animal that they lay eyes on. This is how we acquired Liam the duck.

He came home with us in a batch of fluffy yellow, peeping oh-so-cute siblings, after only a mere ten minutes or so of “Oh PLEEEEEZE Mom...come on, PLEEEEEEEZE?!?!” I caved surprisingly easily; it must have been those little webbed feet. We made a home for them in an empty stall in the barn, and it wasn’t two days until some predator burrowed up into the stall from outside and spirited one away...um, weren’t there five ducklings mom? No sweety, I’m sure we only brought home four.

They moved into a steel dog crate after that for awhile until they got too big, then were relocated into the concrete-floored chicken coop under much protest from the chickens, who picketed and held anti-duck rallies. The kids had fun watching the ducks swim in the fake plastic pond we set up for them and fed them lettuce and treats, then lost interest in them completely. I was left to be mother duck and fed and cleaned them every day. For anyone has had ducks, they are the messiest things on the planet. I led them out to play in the day and back in at night, and when they started to fly, they could do a circuit of the barnyard then land on my back. Trust me, you don’t want to carry one around for too long...they poop every 20 seconds without fail.

Liam was the cutest one of the four, he was dark brown where the others were mixed browns, black and white, and he didn’t have the big red warty thing above his beak like the other muscovies developed as they got older. One afternoon I came home from work and found him sitting on the floor of his stall looking very sad. He had been bitten in the side by a fox perhaps. He wasn’t too bad off, but his wing looked broken and we didn’t know how bad the damage underneath was. Luckily Tom’s cousin was a vet and graciously accepted my frantic call. We took him to her house and he was the perfect patient, letting us flip him onto his back on her kitchen counter while she carried out an examination. She cleaned the wound, dressed it, and even came back a few times to change the dressing. Sure, the ten dollar bunch of ducklings turned into several hundred dollars in a short period of time, but what could I do?

He never was able to fly, but healed up just fine. Several bottles of wine later, I was just fine too, but decided to give the ducks away to another farm where they had lots and lots of other ducks and fowl to play with. I am told Liam has children now and is as happy as can be. He’s not the only one, the chickens have repo-ed their home and have taken the plastic back off their furniture.