Imprinting ducks: but who loves whom more?
The lonely Khaki Campbell duckling hatched on 3rd of March 2018 and was placed into a repurposed rabbit cage brooder inside our living room. It was a happy and chirpy little duck, active, fluffy, dark and beautiful. It really is a shame that I didn’t take any photographs of this time, but then again - photos, birds, smallholding, gardens - none of it was on my mind at the time as March brought the worst symptoms of my pregnancy and James was working away full time again, leaving me alone to cope with it all by myself. Also, the quail were still brooding inside the porch, which was one of the worst poultry keeping mistakes I have ever made - the amount of bad smells that birds create was overwhelmingly astounding so all I wanted to do was hide under covers and sleep this time away.
April finally came, James was working at home a little more often and we finally sorted out the quail, moving them outside and reclaiming our porch. It was a happier time and our little resident duckling was growing fast but still enjoying his indoor palace. He was super cute and I, even in the horrible state I was in, couldn’t resist talking to him, singing to him, playing with him, gently introducing him to our dogs. He was so adorable, loving and gentle that he soon became a little fluffy friend more so than a working smallholding duck. It was a single duck in a large brooder so there was no need to rehome him anytime soon - he was happy inside the brooder, warm under the heat stand and still had plenty of room to move around, jump around and be a little duckling he was.
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One day in mid-April whilst I was home alone the duck got his head stuck inside the hanging feeder. I heard a hissing sound as it air was escaping a balloon and when I went to investigate I found the duck’s neck bent backwards inside the feeder and he was strangling himself attempting to get to the food by reaching from the top of the feeder rather than eating from the bottom as the feeder was designed for. It was so horrific to find him like that, my little duckling! I grabbed the feeder and tried to bend it so that the duck’s neck straightened out and he was able to breathe again but no matter which way I twisted the feeder the duck looked more and more stuck. I was so stressed yet tried my best to help my little friend and in the end had an idea to dismantle the feeder. And it worked! The duck was free, took a deep hissing breath and was back to normal - as if nothing ever happened! That was really lucky indeed!
I knew the emergency was averted but I still felt stressed for a couple of hours afterwards - a sort of prolonged tension in my stomach and I was hoping this wasn’t going to hurt the baby. At the check-up on 16th of April I told my midwife about this (I started by saying “I have a little duck that we keep in the brooder” and I could see her looking puzzled as if to say “what does that have to do with the pregnancy?” - it was really funny) and she advised me to avoid stress where possible. However, the earlier incident made me feel very connected with the duck, and as much as I know I shouldn’t get attached to my farm animals, this duck is special!
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I was warned about ducks imprinting on humans and advised to avoid such scenario, but it seemed that it was he who was becoming imprinted on me and it was I who developed a sense of attachment. After all, he was a single lonely duckling whom I shared a near death experience with so it really was impossible not to get attached to. In many ways I love how attached he is and would like all my farm animals to develop a sense of bond with me, which I think will make it a lot easier to approach, maintain and raise them on my smallholding. So not only do I not mind, I actually prefer to have an imprinted duck.
I kept presuming it’s a boy as it really was impossible to tell at that stage but this is when James started hoping that it was actually a girl so at least we could expect some eggs from her - there was no way this was going to become our Christmas dinner, you see!
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