The saga of the ducks is finally over. We found a new home for the 5 ducks living in our currently vacant hen run. We found the same home for four more ducks that were living in a cellar waiting for the chop - they were delivered to us by hand and upside down on Friday lunchtime.
John helped to build a rather nice duck house at their new home - photos to follow at some stage - and on Saturday we were able to get them to their new home. This is a meadow with a small winter pond (variously called the overflow or the frog pond), a goat house, three goats and a duck house.
It was really heart-warming to see the ducks start to behave like ducks finally after being terrified and cramped in our hen run. In the meadow, they can roam as a flock, sun themselves, take a dip in the pond or the drainage streams round the sides, nibble the grass, rootle for insects and slugs and acorns and even try out flying. They don't get high off the ground as they are too portly and not really designed for flying (see previous comments of mine on selective breeding).
So here are the 9 Donalds in their new home - what a happy ending!
Er, I can only see 8.
Crispy aromatic duck for supper was it Jane?
Posted by: Roger Boucher, France | 18 February 2008 at 05:25 PM
Bonjour Roger! No, I didn't indulge, and I did worry about the photo for a long time, but if you have the benefit of the original high resolution version of the photo, you can see that the duck on the furthest right has two tails - the ninth duck is just beyond and hidden by his fatter confrere.
Posted by: Jane Holland | 19 February 2008 at 08:56 AM