Christmas Ducks, red pandas & mulberries
What do they have in common ?
G’day
Every year in December I adopt an animal that’s advertised “ready to eat for Christmas”. It’s a tradition that’s been going on for a couple of decades now. Previous Christmas’ have seen the arrival of the Christmas goose, the Christmas goats, the Christmas turkey, the Christmas pig, the Christmas rooster etc etc
It’s only November and my friend Robyn’s neighbour who is about 12yrs old told her he was selling his ducks “ready to eat for Christmas”. She was really upset as she’d been watching them since they were tiny ducklings. She had even lent him her plastic clam shell that she uses for her dogs in summer.
Need I say she bought them all. She found homes for all but four of them. Good going in my books. So she built a little yard for them in her backyard and that should’ve been it, happily ever after.
But the fickle finger of fate had other plans. Soon I got a text saying two of the ducks were attacking one of the others. As soon as the victim got into the clam shell to have a swim these two would jump in and attack her and almost drown her.
It was obvious these two had grown into boys and this kind of behavior would be the norm. Apart from the fact that when she would eventually lay eggs they could be fertile and Robyn would end up with even more ducks, there was the possibility of injury and big vet bills.
From my experience I knew that at any moment that little duck could lose an eye. I do have a few geese and other birds with only one eye due to the head pecking/grabbing thing they do especially when mating.
So when the fourth duck was also identified as a girl, Robyn asked me if I would take the two girls. I did hesitate as this year I had decided that I am downsizing and not taking any more animals into my little Sanctuary. But then of course, there is the Christmas Tradition.
But it’s only November.
Being the flexible, go-with-the-flow individual that I am I designated these two girls The Christmas Ducks. So that’s it for this year I am determined there will be no more mouths to feed this Christmas.
These two girls are quite big, actually bigger than any ducks I have. They are about the size of a male muscovy. I put them with my other ducks & muscovies and hoped for the best.
Good news is that everyone is getting on fine. No squabbling or bullying at all. The girls are happy to swim and play in the pond all day (whilst yelling loudly).
Robyn text to say it was so quiet at her house since the girls had gone. I knew exactly what she meant as these girls are the loudest noisiest talkative ducks I’ve ever heard. They are constantly talking to each other and drown out roosters, geese and donkey. The other ducks are entertained and so am I.
But yesterday evening a friend was dropping me off at my gate and exclaimed “what is that running off into the bush?” I hadn’t noticed anything. She reckoned it was two foxes or perhaps two large cats. I joked “not the two deer who pulled my mulberry tree branch down?”
Well, this morning I saw them under a little mulberry tree near the duck yard. They were eating mulberries (everyone loves the mulberries here and I have a number of mulberry trees). They were strange I couldn’t tell if they were young foxes or weirdo dogs. They looked so different to any fox I had ever seen. Can foxes and dogs interbreed I don’t know. They look like a red panda bear without the fluffy tail.
However, feral dogs or foxes never come close to my home paddock where the birds live because I have a lot of guard dogs guarding the yards. So the whole situation is highly unusual.
My theory is that the two new Christmas Ducks are so loud and noisy that everyone in the whole valley can hear them and hence these mysterious critters have been enticed to come close.
Foxes, feral cats and dogs, eagles, hawks are a constant threat to my geese, ducks and turkeys so I have to be vigilant. I’ll have to review my setup and schedule to ensure they don’t get in.
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