Ever since a mystical experience in Alaska ten years ago in which a hitchhiker (who later disappeared along with his entire cabin) gave me a dozen duck eggs as thanks for an 18 mile ride in freezing rain, I’ve been a big fan of protein from the Anatidae family. Duck eggs are not just large-yolked and tasty, they’re…different than your basic incredible, edible egg. It’s like foraging for dinosaur ova. So the FBR got its first half dozen day-old ducklings from the local feed store a couple of weeks ago.
The real surprise about duck raising so far has not been how friendly, energetic and aware they are, nor even how funny their webbed pads sound slapping across the kitchen floor, but rather has come in the form of a general parenting foreshadow. On the day this photo was taken, I was all excited to give the ducklings their first post-incubator “swim” in a small washbasin a friend had left as a gift after ranch sitting recently. They’re ducks, right? They’ll love the opportunity to get out of the heated box and hit the water.
Not so much. After I bestowed upon them dunkings that resembled unintentional baptisms, the ducks cowered, shivering, in my lap. Their looks said unmistakably, “More incubation, please. Or possibly a return to the egg.” It caused me to vividly envision the first time I get all thrilled to take my eventual human children on, say, a camping trip. Thanks to the ducks, I realized that the event will likely prove much more fun for me than for the kids. (Haven’t we all seen this phenomenon in action at various zoos, puppet shows and produce aisles?) Though, as the photo shows, the ducklings dried into clean, fluffy beauties when parading on some FBR produce (and as they’ve grown they’ve become more traditionally aquaphilic). The pictured rouen duck is named Pilar, by the way. Meanwhile, next time I practice Interspecies Parental Projection by imposing genus roles on the ducklings, I’ll have to ask them if Fernando is right in his famous philosophical treatise, “It’s better to look good than feel good.” Ideally, I suppose, one aims for both.
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6 Responses:
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Doesn’t she look happy? They never stop chattering, not even for a picture. You can creep into the barn at 2 a.m. and they’re still discussing the day’s events — the afternoon swim (better than the late morning swim, all agree), the radish greens I dropped in to simulate a real pond, which I’m building, by the way.
And I think Merck now provides a medication aimed at reducing chronic pain caused by cuteness. Side effects may include death, agony and forgetting to put stamps on envelopes.
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:48 pm
My face longs to suck in that duck smell. I hope I don’t get confused and start eating…
You are right on about the parenting. I haven’t been TOO bad about forced fun, but I tortured a daughter tryng to make her look like a ‘ho for a dance, just like mommy used to! Big hair and clown makeup.
October 3rd, 2007 at 7:55 am
Ducks are sexier without makeup. And yummier.
Wonder if Daisy Duck ever thought about taking off those Carol Channing lashes?
I guess truthfully I’ve never had duck….to eat, I mean.
I’ve had possum. (And played possum….)
March 29th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
We made baby duck nurseries out of old shipping crates, and worked fine until they all fought over the water supply. That was when an idea came: make a shallow pond out of an old kiddies wading pool (helps if the kiddies are grown beyond the pool). Suddenly we had a pool loaded with duckies and lots of duckie poo. I was given a pool pump and filter from a friend, so when I wanted to change the water which was often, I pumped the mess to the compost pile or straight to the garden. Worked great.
The kids had great duck egg hunts almost daily.