Photos I just took of 'Mills' my wee 'star'

Kimmyh51

Songster
8 Years
Nov 16, 2015
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This is Mills (Millie/Miller) she is 13 weeks old today. And cuddled into her neck is Jonayla, my not quite one day old duckling...

Mills hatched with leg problems, her legs dont work properly and her brain doesnt send the right messages (or the message gets mixed up between brain - leg).

As a result, Mills cannot walk, and has become much more of a house duck than any other duck I have raised. She is a happy, loving friendly girl, who still Spends time outside every day with the other ducks, and enjoys swimming, swinging (yes swinging from her own 'trapeze' that she operates with her wings) as well as rides in the car, and cuddles with mum(me). So her life is full, and happy.

However people tend to assume that because she cant walk, Mills must be time consuming and hard work for me, and the opposite is actually true.

As well as being great company for me, and the ideal indoor duck, because she cant wander about and get into stuff, so can be kept on a pet bed, rather than having to make up containers with hay/straw/shavings etc every night, Mills has actually been an amazing help to me when caring for rescued ducklings or my own ducklings.
Most 13 week old ducks I know of could not be trusted with a strange tiny duckling, at least not until there had been a lot of time spent making sure they would accept it. Even then many would not allow the duckling to stay close enough to keep it hapoy and warm.
Mills will not only accept me putting the occasional random cold, abandoned or orphaned duckling uner a blanket beside her, but she can be trusted to 'babysit' them without hurting them, or pushing them away.
So far she has helped raise one mallard duckling (who was brought to me by people who found her in their swimming pool) to independance, and allowed several others to cuddle into her overnight when they needed to be brought indoors for various reasons.

Now I have a newly hatched duckling (mum abandoned the nest right before it started to hatch) who came out of my incubator a few hrs ago, and I was able to put beside Mills and leave almost straight away to go to the supermarket, knowing Mills would keep it safe and happy and warm.

Anyway, here is a photo I just took, of the same duckling, cuddled up to Mills...

Mills might not be able to walk, but in my eyes, shes doing much much more important stuff than most of her ducky peers will ever do....
Its funny, I was hoping and praying for some help, in the form of a helper with my rescued ducks and ducklings, just never imagined that helper would be a duck, not a human. But it turns out she has the perfect skill set, and can do all the things i cant do, but need done, so much better than me or any human could.

Go Mills, my wee star...
 
Mills is still learning the trapeze, i do have a video of another of my ducks, Ting, on it, ill try and find the utube link.
Jonayla is now inserting his/herself under Mills's wing and tonight Mills produced another useful skill for me....

She gets restless and likes to flap her wings. I can tell when she wants to be lifted up to do this or put in her swing so, on this hot and humid night, after lots of verbal prompting from her, plua some flapping of her wings while prone on the ground, I lifted Mills up so she could exercise her wings and....


Arrrhhhh the cooling breeze...
My lovely friendly, chatty, mothers helper duck is also...

An electricity-not-needed, effective, cooling fan! Lol...
 
:love How sweet she earns her keep in so many useful ways ;)
She does, and shes almost always in a happy mood, and every time I say something to her she makes the cutest duck happy/interested noise

(duck owners will know it, that "oh, look at this! Its green peas"/ "Im so happy cos I just found something super interesting in the lawn" / "OMG thank you for this yummy bowl of food, gosh just look at it, it looks so tempting and yummy").....

that voice...

Shes like one of those people you always invite to your party or event, because you know everyone will love them,, and they will be really positive and cheerful, and GENUINELY appreciative of the food, surroundings, or whatever else you have spent time on making nice for them :)
 

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