Arrivals and departures on the Unfarm, duck edition

I've put it off for almost a year now but I am finally making myself do it. I have to announce the departure of Maggie, one of my favorite ducks. He (named when we thought he was a she) was a beautiful solid white Pekin (you know, like the Aflac duck) that was especially devoted to his mate, Minna. He would bravely defend her from mating attempts by Gretchen and stood up to any hens that decided to chase Minna. He traveled with us to the beach, to our family house on the Puget Sound, and on camping trips where he and Minna were always a big hit with everyone. He lived most of his life (at night) inside the house with Minna and the bunnies in my art studio, locally known as "the bunny room," where he tolerated wearing a diaper quite well and was generally a very loyal, calm, and friendly duck. 

Unfortunately, a short time after moving outside into the duck house, I went out in the morning to let him and Minna out for the day and found that Maggie had passed away sometime in the night. I took his body in to the nearby humane society and had him cremated, and his ashes now sit on one of my bookshelves in my room, along side several other cremated pets. At some point I fear my deceased pets will outnumber my books - and I have a lot of books - but that is the hazard when you live with animals: you are almost guaranteed to outlive them. Sadly. 

At any rate, Maggie's sudden and unexpected departure left Minna alone in the yard and ducks are not designed to be solitary creatures. Also unfortunate was the timing of Maggie's passing. Duckling season was over and procuring new ducks in the middle of July was going to be more troublesome than I would have liked - I usually just get my ducks and chicks from the local feed store about a mile up the road. As it was I had to scour craigslist and got lucky when I found someone in the city who had just hatched a batch of Ancona ducks. 

Fortunately for me, my mom was visiting my sister in Colorado and my dad was on a cross country bicycle trip so it was the perfect opportunity to get two ducklings (as ducklings should always have at least one other duckling with them.) I find it's generally better to ask forgiveness than permission in situations involving the procurement of more pets. This then is how we ended up with Fern and Aida - two beautiful dark brown and white ducks who turned out to both be males. I would have preferred to have ended up with at least one female duck out of the two so that the girls outnumbered the boys but at the very least Minna is no longer the only duck in the yard and could spend her time with the boys if she chooses to (which she does, on occasion) and there are now three ducks to huddle together in the winter time in the duck house at night to keep each other warmer as the duck house lack central heating. 

As beautiful as Fern and Aida are, I don't know as though I would go the route of a private breeder again for acquiring ducks as the boys are much more nervous and flighty than any ducks I have ever gotten from the feed store. I think it may have something to do with how much handling the ducklings got initially, the feed store ducks being exposed to almost constant attention whereas the small breeder ducks didn't receive as much attention in their formative days. That's my theory, anyway.

Maggie and Minna

Aida, with the darker head is on the left and Fern with the lighter head is on the right. They are both quacking their displeasure at my presence in the yard.