How Minna became a house duck. Again.

Minna started out life as a house duck, along with Maggie, but several years ago the parental units had decided that they had had enough and the ducks were exiled to the backyard and the newly built duck coop. They lived outdoors successfully enough for the last several years, and the majority of our little flock lives out there still, in The Duck Coop: The Sequel (we recently built a second, larger, nicer one.) Two of our ducks, however, have made a return to the house - Gracie and Minna. 

Gracie is able to spend her days outdoors where she drives the boys insane by remaining sequestered in the duck run where the boys are unable to reach her. This is especially hard on the boys during the spring time when hormones are running high among the young drakes, but for Gracie's comfort and safety she needs to be left alone and not jumped on multiple times a day. Or hour, as the case may be. 

Minna is another story. We noticed a year or so ago that she was having trouble moving around and would often end up sitting in one place for the majority of the day. A trip to the vet revealed that she has nerve damage and can't get around easily, leaving her at the mercy of the weather, the other ducks, and the chickens. So it was decided that for her comfort and safety she would rejoin us in the house. The years have not been so kind to her and she is starting to show her age, as she is now a little over 13 years old and currently both her knees are dislocated, in addition to her nerve damage. 

She now spends much of her day resting on a dog bed covered in puppy pads, going outside in the duck run for short periods of time, eating her meals in the bathroom using a feeding platform to allow her to be at standing height without putting pressure on her knees, getting treats like blueberries and peas (some of her favorites) and taking a daily bath in the bathtub to keep her clean and happy. I would let her spend more time driving the young drakes crazy with Gracie, but the vet recommended she spend her time on mostly soft surfaces so that she doesn't develop the equivalent of bed sores, which would shorten her life. And before you ask, the vet has already stated that she would not recommend putting Minna to sleep at this point and I can't bear the thought of letting her go before she may be ready. 

Minna (on her feeding platform) and Gracie, enjoying some duck chow

In addition to making her a feeding platform out of fabric and PVC pipes, I have also made a wheelchair in much the same way, with the addition of wheels and a handle, so that when the weather finally turns nice I can take her out for little walks in the neighborhood to let her nibble at plants and enjoy the sunshine. And fear not for our reputation: the neighbors already know we're crazy.

Scout can't resist getting in the picture with Minna's new wheels

Some updates from the Unfarm

Well, apparently my resolution to blog more this year is going swimmingly. (Not.) At any rate, here are some updates from the Unfarm to catch you up on what has been happening.

We lost Mynx, our little black and white spotted kitty cow, last August when she went into kidney failure. She had been declining for a while but we had been giving her medications and sub-cutaneous fluids for a couple of months in an effort to support her kidneys and buy her some extra time but we finally ran out of time for her on August 3, 2019. She took a turn for the worse and we had a vet come out to the house to put her to sleep where she would be most comfortable, at home, surrounded by the people who loved her. It brought an end to the Era of Mynx, which lasted well over a decade in our home. She was never a cat that loved to be picked up and held - in fact, she would scream like you were trying to murder her - but give her a lap to sit on and a hand to lick and she was a happy camper. The only time she allowed us to hold her without screaming at us was the day we found her. She followed us through the neighborhood and let us pick her up and carry her home when it became apparent that she was going to stick with us even if it meant crossing a busy street or two. Not once did she utter so much as a peep. So we carried her home, tried to find her family without success, and officially adopted her and had her spayed a week or two later. We never did find out exactly how old she was when she found us, but we figure she was at least 13 years old, probably closer to 15, when she passed away.

Mynxy cat, our kitty cow

We gained two ducks, and lost one of them. In the spring of 2019 I adopted two ducklings from the feed store and named them Gwendolyn and Genevieve. True to form for the Unfarm, Genevieve ended up having special needs: a cricked neck when she was quite young, but that got sorted out with help from the bird specialist vet we go to, and they grew up to be strong and healthy girls (both of them - imaging that!) and attached to each other at the hip. They would spend all their time together and hung out with the other ducks, Minna (our oldest female) and Fern and Aida (our two males, named when they were ducklings with the hope that they would be females, alas it was not to be.) Things were going quite well until February 2020 when Genevieve developed respiratory symptoms and our regular vet was out of town. We took her to two other vets who saw birds, but not as their sole practice, and treated her as best we could but she succumbed to her illness on the evening of February 13, while I held her.

Genevieve, on the left, and Gwendolyn, on the right

We gained two ducks, and lost one of them. Having a sense of deja vu? In the spring of 2020, I adopted two more ducklings from the feed store and named them Fiona and Gemma. This was in an effort to get the right mix of ducks so that the girls outnumbered the boys, to spread out the boy's attention over a wider population of females. So in came Gemma and Fiona, both mallards or rouen ducks, I still am not sure. They were doing great, getting along with the rest of the flock until they got spooked. The rototiller was brought into the back yard (not by myself, but identities are withheld to protect the guilty party) and it spooked the ducks into running. As the larger males, Fern and Aida, came barreling down on Fiona and Gemma, Fiona decided to take off. Literally. He (as we were beginning to suspect, as he was starting to develop what looked like male plumage) lifted off and landed outside the yard on the street beside the house. Fortunately no one was coming and it is a quiet street anyhow, so we attempted to get him back into the yard but he spooked again and flew off. The last we saw of him, he was flying east along our street. We put up signs and notices online, and searched the nearby area and local ponds for him but never found him. Fortunately, Gemma seems to have gotten over her loneliness and has joined the flock with Minna, Gwen, Fern, and Aida. 

Gemma on the left, and Fiona on the right

So there you have it. An update on some of the comings and goings here on the Unfarm. We are hoping for a relatively calm fall as 2020 has been stressful enough for everyone as it is. Here's hoping you and yours stay safe and well.

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. 

Minna goes missing

Less than a month after Sophie went missing, we are now faced with a missing duck. Minna is small, brown, and rather inconspicuous to begin with and when she wants to secret herself away she is remarkably good at staying quiet and going unnoticed even if you happen to be standing right next to her. She does this frequently, actually. I'm not sure if she is hiding from me or trying to stay under the radar of the boys (Fern and Aida) and Gretchen, all of whom I suspect of trying to mate with her although I have only actually seen Gretchen attempting it. At any rate it is not an uncommon occurrence here on the Unfarm for me to wander around the backyard calling Minna's name while she sits in whatever spot she has chosen and waits me out. I suspect she also laughs merrily at my increasingly frantic searches as the ducks seem to have very little sympathy for my nerves.

Usually, the evening routine is that the ducks will get dinner after the chickens go to bed and then they waddle on in to their own coop for the night. This is usually when Minna decides to make her appearance: as soon as she hears the lid to the food bin opening up. The other night, however, she failed to show up so I went in search of her, fearing the worst (as anxiety is my forte.) I searched in all the usual places: under the deck, behind the wheelbarrow and beneath the fronds of the day lily. No Minna. So I widened my search and as I was nearing the gate separating the relatively safe backyard from the hugely unsafe (and therefore off limits to all unsupervised birds) front yard, where any wandering coyote or neighborhood dog could spell disaster, I saw Minna's head poking underneath the gate. It seems she had decided to exile herself from the backyard and was enjoying life in the front yard, sans any birds of the male persuasion. Which was, I may have mentioned, hugely unsafe. Mystery one: where is Minna? Solved. Mystery two: how did she get out? Unsolved. At any rate, she was found relatively quickly and I didn't have to spend a sleepless night worrying about her. 

What I thought was an isolated incident turned out not to be when Minna was discovered missing again the next day. This time, the first place I looked was the front yard as time was of the essence if she was wandering rather slowly through it (she walks with a limp from an old injury and so does not move very fast and is, therefore, one of our most vulnerable animals.) I found her almost immediately, sitting underneath the trailer right outside the gate. How exactly she got there was still anyone's guess because recent tilling and weeding activity in the side garden had exposed several gaps along the bottom of the fence line that were just big enough for an enterprising duck of Minna's size could fit through, not to mention the gap and the bottom of the gate. We blocked off the bottom of the gate with a block of wood and that seems to have stopped Minna's forays into the front yard for now (solving mystery two) but I fear it is only a matter of time before she finds a new escape hatch. She is, after all, highly motivated to keep out of the way of the Gretchen, Fern and Aida; despite explaining numerous times to them that "no means no," they refuse to listen to me.

Life on the Unfarm: an illustrated account

In all fairness, when I started writing this post, it was still Monday. And it would have been posted by Monday if the internet hadn't crashed, sending my post into the black hole where all things lost on the internet end up. So here we go again.

Last week I the blog took a hiatus while I worked on a pincushion for a Mother's day gift, with bee pins that turned out pretty cute (although mine is probably not an unbiased opinion); biked around the town and to work on account of the fact that my car was out of gas; worked on some art; and impaled my leg on a metal garden fence. Not to worry though, the prongs between the gate were large enough to get my calf wedged through, but not small enough to break the skin on both sides. As it was I escaped with a cut on only one side of my leg and L-shaped bruises on both sides, where the fence went on, and where I had to rip it back off again.

At any rate, it is Monday (sort of) and time for another photo from the Unfarm.

Today I managed to catch the ducks sleeping under the lilac tree, in a patch of lily of the valley. Unfortunately, Axel walked past and set off Maggie's protective instincts, causing him to tear out of the flowers and chase Axel off until Maggie determined that Axel was now at a safe enough distance from Minna. Maggie takes his job as Minna's bodyguard very seriously. So the picture I had intended to get - of both ducks sleeping with their beaks tucked under their wings - ended up becoming a photo of Maggie returning to Minna, quacking his "qua-qua-qua-qua-qua-qua-qua" chatter that he uses to reassure Minna and calm her down. 

Where's Minna?

This just in: the Life on the Unfarm blog is now illustrated!

I finally broke down and bought a digital camera last weekend, so here are the first few photos of Minna.

Maggie is rarely more than a few feet from Minna at any given time, which is why, when I looked out in the garden and saw Maggie without Minna I was mildly concerned. Not a full blown panic but worried enough to go out and investigate. It didn't take long for Minna to pop her head out of the middle of the daylily, and then disappear back into it again. So here we go: Minna in her hiding spot in the daylily. Enjoy.

Destination: Panic, ETA: now

Good evening everyone, and thank you for flying Anxiety Air. Please fasten your seat belts and keep your chairs in the upright position. Our final destination today is Panic and our ETA is... now.

How did I end up here again? How is it that I seem to attract animals with less than ideal health? (Not that I love them any less - my animals are my world.) Let's review - a cat with hyperthyroidism that led to heart failure, a chicken that needed a hysterectomy, a duck with "failure to thrive" (meaning that there was something wrong with Kodi, but the vets couldn't figure out what exactly it was) and two rabbits who succumbed to severe gastrointestinal problems, one right after the other. And now here I am again, sitting in the vet's office with my duck, Minna, hoping and praying for good news.

When we last left our story, Minna was under the weather and I was contemplating a vet visit if she didn't show improvement by the morning. So, Monday morning, with no visible improvement, I packed her up (and Maggie, who would rather sit inside next to Minna all day long than spend even ten minutes outside without her) and headed to vet number three: the bird specialist. The diagnosis? A pinched nerve from laying an egg. The treatment: five days of Celebrex. If she still hasn't shown any improvement by Thursday morning, I'll need to recheck with the vet. Leaving the vet's office, I felt fairly optimistic - the medicine would work and Minna would regain the use of her leg. Need I say that today is Thursday and she still hadn't improved? The new plan is to finish the Celebrex and start a course of antibiotics (she produced two soft shelled eggs this week, prompting the vet to suspect an infection in her uterus.) If there is still no improvement by Saturday morning, Minna will head back to the vet for a cortisone shot.

Needless to say, I have been in a panic all week, and it is only getting worse with each passing day that Minna fails to improve. I am praying that she recovers from this, as I am nowhere near being ready to say goodbye to another of my little ones. I will add updates when I can. Prayers for Minna's quick recovery are much appreciated.