My duck is injured and a pain in the butt :P

[Wifezilla]

Well it is dark now and she had been giving me the evil eye earlier today...no doubt for DARING to touch her

She ate fine and even ran to the back porch when I said the magic word "peas" so other than the shoulder and the attitude, she is fine

I will see how she is doing tomorrow. If the boys have to go in time out, so be it.

 

[linda_zeagler31002]

Quote:
http://www.longshadowfarms.com/FAQ.html Look here she has links for everything from the rooter to the tooter for ducks, and a picture of her wrapping a duck wing.

 

[Hattiegun]

Wifezilla... How is Prairie Dawn ???

 

[gofasterstripe]

Prairie Dawn...that is such a pretty name for a duck.

 

[Wifezilla]

Update: We did not wrap her wing again. She stopped dragging it on the ground the next day though it was still droopy. Then we had bigger issues. A great horned owl killed one of our drakes (Cartman) and injured one of hens...Prairie Dawn's half-sister Abby Cadabby. So we are now thinking instead of a mating injury, Prairie Dawn was injured by that owl and somehow got away. Abby's neck was punctured and bleeding a bit so we brought her inside and made her a hospital bed. By the next morning she was doing better and went back out with the other ducks. She was skittish, stiff and moving slow for a couple of days, but we saw her eat and drink. Now she is fine. Back to her old mouthy obnoxious self. Prairie Dawn still isn't holding her wing totally right, but there is obvious improvement. It's not like not being able to fly is going to be an issue with her since she never could get more than 2 feet off the ground for more than a few seconds in the first place.

As for mister owl (gggrrrrrrrr), we found a section of our pen netting that was down and fixed that. We also lock them in a secure pen at night. We had been letting them sleep in the run ever since Lexi overtook the night pen when she went broody. Now it is back to night time lock down. We will have to build a separate, secure broody pen before spring.

The owl has stopped back a few times since this all happened. Since he can't get at the ducks anymore, it sits on the fence by my window and hoots....loudly....between 3 and 5 am

 

[Where The Wild Things Are]

I would get an air horn and "hoot" loudly right back! Can't you call someone to "re-locate" the owl? Since they are protected, I would think they (wildlife management) would want the owl somewhere that it might not have, say...an accident? If the owl were here at my place, killing my ducks...I would be VERY worried that it would have an accident. Since they are protected, and we are not allowed to cause intentional harm...I would worry that some of my protective measures might cause unintentional harm. An owl caught in protective netting or electrified wire would be, well...unfortunate. If the animal is "protected" then they (wildlife management) should protect it! Legeslation does not prevent accidents, but re-locating it might. I'm VERY sorry to hear about your duckies. Our pets are not snacks for predators, protected or otherwise. Wow...I'm off my soap box (sorry).

 

[katharinad]

Man and we have 5 mating pairs of great horned owls in our trees. They drive the dogs nuts in the middle of the night with their calls. Never mind that our dogs love to sleep in bed with us. They bark and jump up at the same time and usually land on top of us. Hate that rude wakeup! You have to see the females they are 3 feet tall, the boys are only half of that. I never had a problem with them, but it can happen. Our ducks do get locked up in the duck house each night, and that makes me feel better.

Quite honest. Who is there to tell if you shoot one down, if there aren't any neighbors around. I don't think relocation works with those birds. Sorry for the loss and injuries of your duckies. Try the wing wrapping again. It takes some practice. I usually wrap the wing up first and then wrap that to the body. The trick is to do one wrap near the legs and the other one way up the chest so they cannot pull the wing up. I only wrap in the daytime and take it off at night. 3 days should work wonders.