Thanks everyone. There was no trail of feathers and blood. There was a little snow on the ground, so I checked for tracks, and there were none, but it wouldn't take much wind to cover the tracks of a small predator. As I said, I really don't think it was a raccoon, because the blood pattern showed the struggle to be more than halfway down the duck house from the door. The idea that it was a fight between the ducks came from the woman who breeds them, and there are agricultural journal articles about ducks killing and eating each other, but I am now convinced it was a weasel. In any event, if we can safeguard against a weasel, it will keep other predators out too.
Right now, the duck house isn't our major concern. Dumpling will stay inside with us until she is recuperated, and will not be outside until we have the entire duck house encased with hardware cloth.
Our immediate worry is the chickens, As I said, their house is old, with wood brittle from age. We need to enclose that with hardware cloth, which will be any undertaking because of its size (about 15' by 20') and the weather. We're going to have to remove all the wood bedding so that we can get hardware cloth down to cover the wood floor.
Agai, thank you all. I was up all night, reasing about poultry and predators, and I am worried sick for the girls. (The chickens.) I feel so awful that we didn't protect the ducks enough.
