What To Do

Today was a difficult day. The photos to the left are of two ducks that my wife and I hatched a couple of years ago. They were hatched from an incubator, so they both imprinted on us, and they became very friendly and tame. How else could someone get so close so as to take a picture of two obviously wild mallards?

Last year, while on vacation, we came home to find that our mallard hen had been badly mutilated, probably by our dog. We have never figured out what actually happened, but somehow our two ducks were allowed to come into contact with one of our dogs and she lost her beak in the process. There was no humane alternative other than having her put to sleep.

These two ducks were a mated pair. The female had sat on a half a dozen eggs, and successfully raised four nice ducks. Eventually, we released them into the wild because we made a conscious effort to not allowing them to imprint on humans. They imprinted on their mama. Long story short, the drake mallard was completely lost after we had the hen put to sleep. He has been like a fish out of water since last October.

Over time, he began to get attached to my wife. He has even become possessive of her, attacking me if I get too close. He is a really fun duck though, much smarter than most people would think a duck can be. We have a little red chicken too, and he has taken up a back yard friendship with her. The chicken lost a chicken buddy about two years ago and the duck is all she has now.

Oh! Did I mention? The duck and chicken sleep inside the house at night. We allow them out during the day, but at night they come in. They lead a really sheltered life.

Back to the story. There is a nice little stream which runs through our back yard. The stream is on our property, but it is on the other side of a short chain link fence. With the rains lately, the stream has filled with water. This morning, I went out to check on the duck and chicken and was unable to find the duck at first. He had flown over the chain link fence and was in the stream. He had found another hen, plus a drake that was already pursuing her, both of them wild of course, and he was swimming with them.

Now we don't know what to do. We love our duck, but it seems that he is feeling the call of the wild. I tried to get him to come up to the back door just before dark, which is his usual routine, but he would not come. So, my wife and I walked down to the stream and attempted to coax him to come up, but when we did the other two ducks took flight and our mallard followed them. I whistled and clapped and called to him. After he had flown about a half mile away, he turned around and came back to our yard and landed. Later, the other two birds returned too.

So, our duck and chicken are indoors tonight. But tomorrow is a different day. We don't know what the right thing is to do. We are leaning toward allowing our duck to choose. After all, he is a wild duck. But, we know that our last little red chicken would be very lonely without him. They have become quite the pals.