Pompom Duck has her eyes infected

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Well, i might have made a terrible mistake: I took Iris with me outside to enjoy the sunshine and some company from her flockmates. She jumped out of her laundry basket and started foraging with the others and then ran of with everybody up to the pond. Now she is on the water and i can only hope she will find a way off the pond in the evening…
Here she is quacking with the flock:

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I always get a kick out of you saying it will be really cold at -4. I think that's the high for here tomorrow, lol!

You need to get one of those duck harnesses. Take a duck with you into town. Start being referred to as The Crazy Old German Duck Man.

There's a reason why i didn't move to Canada…
Me in August in Victoria BC, wearing Jeans and T-Shirt - shivering in the evening while walking along the harbor, watching the folks living on their house-boats.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

[...]
You need to get one of those duck harnesses. Take a duck with you into town. Start being referred to as The Crazy Old German Duck Man.

I actually called my Dr. office yesterday, i had a short appointment there and asked if i could bring my duck with me. They said "no". So i said i'm not coming then.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Good News, crew!

Not only managed Iris to get off the pond and run - yes run - down to the house to pick up some food, she did that three times this afternoon! Yes, she had a lot of help from her flock-mates as well as from the Mallards, but i am impressed how well that worked out.
The only bad news in all that improvement was the she was soaking wet when i picked her up in the evening to give her her tablet - no fight at all today and then her eye-drops and the ointment. She even ate her cat-food while peacefully sitting on my lap.
And the she wanted to walk all by herself to the duck-house, so i set her down in front of the patio steps. Went inside to get the duck's supper-bowl, let PomPom Duck stuff herself, then walked with the supper bowl to the duck-house and found Iris waiting for it. She dug in viciously…
What the ducks don't know is that the rice in the bowl has absorbed one gram of Cephalexin, a very new antibiotics that doesn't require me to discard the eggs. [don't ask how i obtained that stuff, though!]
Now i need to do some grocery shopping, guess i can sleep much better tonight, knowing both ducks, Iris as well as Pompom are making progress.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Update on Iris and Pompom Duck: Pompom wanted to be smart this morning. I heart her screeching in the house but she wouldn't run out. She carefully stepped out of the door trying to see if i was waiting for her - i hid behind the railing of the adjacent work-platform and when she came out, one step forward and gotcha!
Walking with a screaming, flailing, flapping, scratching and, yes, biting duck to the patio wasn't fun! Aparently i should print out the notes to myself with hand-size letters and attach them to the duck-house: »Don't wear a t-shirt when picking up PomPom DUCK!«
Or maybe i just grabbed the wire-brush under the shower, yesterday?

In the meantime Iris Duck managed to walk back into the duck-house and hid under the ramp to the upper level to no success. But she isn't scared of me anymore and actually snuggled with me on the way to my home-office. - Usual treatment with eye-drops and -ointment twice before i went outside to work in the garden later and let her loose to join the flock. She is definitely healing, here she is patiently sitting on my lap, waiting for the eye-ointment to distribute over her eyeballs.

Her left eye is still cloudy and i have very little hope that she can regain any vision back here. At least she doesn't seem to be in (much) pain compared to yesterday:

​

Her right eye looks very promising, she saw the container with the cat-food, turned her head towards it and dug in!

Both eyes look more opaque than they are in fact due to the eye-ointment applied seconds before.

 

[Aunt Angus]

Thank you very much! - [dog] nail clipper - hmm - i hate to use those even on my nails! I was more thinking about using something abrasive like a small piece of sandpaper or a file…

Try an emery board.

 

[Aunt Angus]

Here's what you need to wear when administering duckie medical treatments:

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Try an emery board.
View attachment 3410473

That's exactly the picture i had in my mind! - However, with Iris starting to roam around more and more, that may no longer be necessary. Also she got somewhat used to pe picked up and handled.
For Pompom Duck, however i will rent this:

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Here's what you need to wear when administering duckie medical treatments:

Futile! - I'm sure Pompom would poop holes into the iron!

 

[Aunt Angus]

Futile!

Futile? Or maybe you mean "feudal!"

(get it? because it's a knight)

I apologize for the bad joke.