Duck Drama

All 9 of the ducks hatched two days before we were moving and five days before we were closing.  I am not a big animal person, so these ducks STRESSED me out (plus I was a little afraid of the mama duck).  The kids wanted to be outside all the time with the ducks.  I felt like I needed to be right there so that none were squished, dropped or stepped on.  Andrew & Rachel got comfortable enough grabbing them out of their nest to play with them (the mama duck was not always happy about it, but she liked the kids much better than she liked me).  The baby ducks chased around the kids and let them hold them - it was pretty amazing - and I was thrilled my kids got this opportunity, even if it only was for a few days.

It was time to tell the new owners, so I called Kacey and Karl we talked through the different options.  We were worried about letting them out of the backyard for fear that they'd never make it to a pond and we also worried about transporting them to a pond because we heard that the other ducks who live there can be territorial and uninviting to newcomers.  Thankfully the new owners are animal lovers and wanted to keep them.  Phew!  We had enough stress trying to move out and get the house ready for close.  I did not want to have to worry about the ducks too.  I got some duck feed for them for the week, just in case mama duck wasn't bringing them enough food, and called it good.  We then stayed up most the night getting ready for the big move in the morning.

The morning of the move, I was careful to inform all the helpers about the baby ducks in the backyard and to keep the gate closed.  A couple hours after the move, the kids were begging to go back to the old  house to visit the ducks.  We went back and someone had left the gate open, even despite my pleas, although I'm sure it was just an accident.  But now there weren't any ducks in the backyard!  I panicked, and didn't know what to do.  I had Andrew and Rachel with me and we began looking for them.  The next door neighbor's house was empty and being renovated, and they always left their gate open because workers were always in and out.  We checked there first, and sure enough we saw some ducks in their pool (apparently our kiddie pool was not good enough).  The mama duck was sitting on the side, and I quickly started counting ducks - there were only 4 in the pool and 1 was dead in the pool.  With a new family of ducks, the babies need a ramp to get in/out of the pool, and you'd have to turn off the filter.  We searched the yard, and could NOT find the other 4.  I knew they wouldn't leave their mom's side, so we kept looking.  I finally had the thought to check the filter, and sure enough, the other 4 ducks had been sucked into the little flapper, and drowned in the filter area.  It was terrible.  My kids were comforting me as I sat and cried.  I felt horrible, and I'm surprised my kids held up so well.  I only liked the little things because my kids loved them so much.  Anyway, THANKFULLY there was someone working at the house who helped me pull out all the dead ducks ("helped" meaning he removed all of them for me) and the kids and I grabbed the 4 baby ducks who were alive.  The worker was also kind enough to grab the mom duck for us, and we put them all back in our backyard safe and sound.  Then I had to call Kacey and tell her what happened and that there were only 4.

We went back to our rental, and I was exhausted - both emotionally (from the ducks) and physically (from the move).  I felt awful about the whole thing.  Later that night (still only Saturday), my dear friend, Kasey Perkinson came by to drop off some goodies. She said that earlier, she had stopped by our other house seeing if we were there, and she had seen the mama duck trying to get her babies to squeeze under our gate to get out.  That had been a few hours before, so I quickly ran over to the house with a flashlight since it was 9:30p searching for the ducks.  The gate was closed, but they weren't in our backyard.  I ran to the neighbors with the pool, and sure enough there they were swimming (since they couldn't get out) and I counted all 4.  What was this mama duck thinking going right back there?!  I called a friend's husband who knew about pools and he helped me turn the filter off (since it was a Saturday night, I knew workers weren't going to be there until Monday morning).  Then we put our ramp from our yard in the pool so they could get in/out and then scooped them out and put them by their mom who was resting on the side for the night.  I decided the best thing to do for the time being was to shut them into the neighbor's backyard until I could figure out what to do with them.  On Sunday, I checked on them multiple times throughout the day and even once during church.  At one point, the mom was trying to get them outside of the backyard and through small openings in back wall of the neighbor's yard.  This was getting so exhausting, it was ridiculous!  Unfortunately, there isn't any Duck 911 or else I would have called in reinforcements.  At this point, I knew they wanted to be out on their own, but I wanted to get them to a safe place.  We thought we found a home (farm) for them while we were talking to some friends at church, but they changed their mind and we were back to square one.  During the afternoon when I went to check on them, the babies were by themselves while the mama duck had gone somewhere, so I chased and scooped them up and put them back in our backyard at their nest.  Then I secured the gate and really covered all the tiny holes, and decided I'd let the new owners deal with the situation.  I bet the mama duck was ticked at me when she found them back at their nest.  Luckily, they stayed in our backyard until it closed!  Yay!!

The new owners are the sweetest people, and they really enjoyed the ducks.  That is, until the baby ducks started dying.  This is not a joke.  I have to assume they died of natural causes, she didn't really give me many details.  The remaining 4 died within a week.  At least those ones didn't happen under my care.  This was enough duck drama to last me a lifetime.  And I failed miserably at taking care of them (although I think the mama duck should take most of the blame!).  This was so much stress for me, I hope we don't get a pet for a long time!!