THE DUCKS ARE FREE!

Exactly a week ago we let the ducks go free.  Mature enough and with enough feathers, it was time for them to learn about their new home.  My husband was in Providence helping our son assemble the pieces of his very large master's thesis presentation, so I enlisted the aid of my friend Candace.

While Candace took photos, I unhooked the end of the cage and tried to entice the ducks outside.  They just quacked and ran back inside the shed.  I went into the shed to try to shoo them outside but they still wouldn't leave the caged in area.  After about ten minutes we knew they weren't going to come outside on their own accord so I decided to wait until my husband came home to try to release them again.  For their protection, I had to close the end of the cage and hook it securely so predators couldn't trap the ducks inside.  That was my big mistake.

Let's face it, ducks are messy little creatures.  When I grabbed the end of the wooden frame to put the hinged door back on the cage, it was totally slimy.  Ewww, as you can see by my face in the photo, I'm a city girl, not a farmer, so, of course, I dropped the gate.  When I dropped it, it swung all the way down and inside the cage and whacked a big chunk off of the elaborate water system my husband had built to insure that the ducks had constant fresh water.  No more fresh water meant that the ducks would HAVE to come out of the cage.

Since I had absolutely no intention of climbing into the cage, I propped the gated end back up and Candace and I beat a hasty retreat into the house and waited to see if the ducks would come outside.  We waited, and waited, and waited some more, but nothing happened.  Without any water, the ducks would have to venture outside at some point but it was like that expression, "a watched pot never boils."

Candace went home and I went back to my book, checking every hour or so to see if the ducks had come out.  Finally, around dinner time, there was a lot of quacking and when I looked outside, our seventeen new ducks had left their cage, but now we had a new problem.  The two ducks we adopted from a family in Basking Ridge last year didn't want to share the yard or the stream with our new ducks.  They turned into total bullies and drove our new ducks into the tall grasses on the edge of the stream and wouldn't let them come out or get near the food.

It's now a week later and our cute new ducks are still in hiding and the two bullies are still "circling the wagons" to keep the newcomers from getting any food or even venturing into the stream.  I think we're going to have to catch the two adopted ducks and relocate them, so if anyone is interested in two fully grown ducks with poor social skills, just email me.  We'd be more than happy to deliver them to you.