Fly Free, Ducky

Ducky is no longer with us.

You may remember Duck from November. The Muscovy ducks decided to hatch out a clutch of eggs on Halloween night, and they were all waddling around on Sat 11/1 early morning. Except for one, who was upside down, cold and half dead. My son found her on the ground, and despite my best "it will probably die, such is nature" speech, the kids insisted on bringing it in the house ,warming it up and trying to save it.

http://shellyct.blogspot.com/2008/11/newest-addition.html

And they succeeded. But it was too cold for Ducky to go back outside in the winter after being raised in the house. She was apparently premature and behind her siblings, she just couldn't keep up.

http://shellyct.blogspot.com/2009/01/ducky-update.html

So she was raised in the family room, with a dog crate and an x-pen for a duck house. She had visits to the garden to play when the weather was warmish (30's and up), and visits to the bathtub for swimtime, and was allowed to roam the family room from time to time when we kicked the dogs out of the room for awhile, always supervised.

This morning, I had Cher gated in the kitchen to eat her breakfast (she's a little food aggressive, so eats separately). Ducky was in her x-pen in the family room, which is up a flight of stairs and around the corner from the kitchen. I went out to feed horses, and when I came back in the house, Ducky had somehow managed to fly out of her x-pen, down the stairs, around the corner, and over the gate into the kitchen. Cher killed her. My guilt is enormous.

Good bye, Ducky. I'm so sorry.