Lil "Miz" Bee

We want to thank Everyone who has donated so far to help Lil Ms. Bee with her recent wing surgery. As many of you know, her boyfriend Marvin accidentally broke her wing when getting a bit too amorous with her (he didn't mean to!). But the good news is, she's doing great.

Lil Ms. Bee is staying indoors with us in our sunroom for the next few weeks and has had two positive check-ups since her wing surgery--with another follow-up x-ray scheduled soon.

If you haven't donated yet, please consider doing so. We have another feed order scheduled to arrive at the end of September and the ducky checking account is quite low. We're really trying to avoid dipping into our sanctuary rebuild savings because we have two pens to tear down and rebuild by the end of October in order to stay on track and keep our sanctuary open.

If you can help, please do:  Donate. Every bit makes a difference!

Ducky Hero of The Month!

Congrats to Christine of Spokane, WA who was adopted by a duck who wandered into their barn and decided to stick around. They recognized that their new Blue Swede drake "Crackers" was lonely, so they went out and rescued a Khaki Campbell drake from a local pond where he was dropped off and abandoned.

Elvis and Crackers are getting along famously, so happy to have friendship, safety and a family in their lives again!

Thank you Christine & family for making such an amazing difference in the lives of these two precious boys! You are an inspiration!

Elvis (left) and Crackers (right)

A Pair of Boys

We get a lot of emails from homes with single drakes, wanting to know if adopting another drake as a companion is a good option. There are many factors to determining if your male duck will get along with another boy.

Older boys tend to get along better with one another than younger boys who have more energy to invest into competing. Younger drakes also have greater surges of spring hormones, which can also lead to more squabbles.

Boys introduced in the fall/early winter (when hormones are at their lowest) have a better chance of establishing a friendship than those introduced in spring/summer.  

Having no females around to compete over usually results in much-reduced fighting. Keep in mind, if either of the boys are human-imprinted, they may compete over attention from YOU! Alternately, adding 2-4 females for every male (enough for everyone) can also reduce competitive fighting--if you have the pen space. 

Boys who grow up together sometimes get along better than males introduced later in life, but this is not always the case.

And of course, there’s personality... Calm or lonely drakes tend to get along better with a new friend than secure, energetic drakes who tend to put all their extra pizzazz  into wrestling matches.

And let's not forget the nature of different breeds. Certain breeds are sometimes feistier than others. We find that Cayuga drakes are often more steadfast than Pekins. Muscovy ducks don't take no for an answer (and we love that about them!) and Mallards can be relentless despite their smaller size.

And finally… drakes who are the same size usually fight more than a pair comprised of one larger and one smaller drake. This is because the same-sized drakes tend to have greater difficulty establishing and maintaining the pecking order--it's always a competition vying for the top, and each boy has equal opportunity. In situations with one slightly larger and one slightly smaller drake, the bigger boy often has an easier time holding onto his throne.

For example… Our Pekin drake Rilo shares a pen with our huge Muscovy drake Billy-cha. There's no way Rilo's going to start a fight with Billy. There’s no need for pecking order disputes over who’s going to be in charge, clearly it will always be Billy, so the peace is always kept.

A Duck Without a Voice

Is your duck opening their bill, but no sound is coming out? Or perhaps they're suddenly not attempting to quack at all. We have received a couple of emailed questions from different families about this issue recently.

Can you hear me now?!

If your duck is opening their bill to quack, but nothing’s coming out they may have swallowed something that hurt their throat. Ducks will sometimes swallow a nut or pebble that’s a little too big and it can lead to temporary vocal damage. The worry here is if they did scrape up their throat it might become infected, in which case antibiotics are a good precautionary treatment to preventing further issues or long-term/permanent vocal damage. An anti-inflammatory medication (like Metacam or Rimadyl) for 3-4 days (not too much more or you could potentially risk renal damage) can reduce swelling/pain and help their healing. If this is truly what happened, and they're treated quickly and properly, their voice should start to come back within 1-2 weeks, depending on severity.

You know your duck's environment better than anyone. Take a moment and consider if there’s any chance they may have swallowed an unsafe object (screw, coin, nail, paperclip, etc.). If so, they should have an immediate x-ray done to make sure it isn’t lodged anywhere inside of them, which might lead to further and more serious issues (i.e. hardware disease, zinc poisoning, etc.).

If your duck's not attempting to quack at all, you should not delay in getting them to a vet immediately. This type of symptom can be very severe. Your duck's silence could be a sign that their health is deteriorating from an infection or some other issue entirely. In which case, x-rays, blood work, antibiotics or some other tests/treatments may be in order.