Ducklings - A Story

Take a good close look at this little guy.  Does it look as though he's struggling to survive?

Here's another angle of him.  Seems perfectly healthy to me.  But that was not what the store that had this duckling told 2 young men who were there to appreciate the spring birds.  The story I was told by the young men was the store had said this duckling was slower than his counterparts and they did not expect him to make it.  So they were going to just "throw him out."  Yes, that was verbatim for what the guys told me that afternoon after they knocked on my front door and handed me a small cardboard box containing this little guy.  Apparently their grandfather lived down the road and knew I kept ducks, so instructed the young men to bring the little one to me.  At this point I had to tell them that I didn't have ducks, I had geese, but that I'd had ducks in the past.

Mentally my shoulders dropped, I didn't really want ducks, not my favorite avian species for personal reasons, but I was not about to turn this little guy away.  So I took him from the young men, put him on a heating pad with some crushed chicken feed and a tiny bowl of water while I fired up the brooder.  His story has since been told all around and he is thriving.

I lucked out though, after having placed an ad on CL several days ago asking anyone for another young duck to act as companion to Neitzche (name of the duckling, yes I named him.  LOL), I just happened across an ad today with an offer of free ducklings to anyone that was interested from a photographer whose lined-up-home for the babies had fallen through.  They were a week old.  Perfect!!  So I went and picked them up this evening.

But only one of these lucky babies will get to stay with Neitzche, the rest will be offered to other homes.  After all, I don't really like ducks!!