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Are ducks able to grieve? - Do they know what "dead" means?
Those are the questions still haunting me after today's sad duty of burying the poor little drake.
I could not do that earlier, due to the frozen ground around here yesterday and even after a lot of sunshine today it was difficult. So i had that poor little guy sitting in my wheelbarrow overnight, covered with a piece of plywood. Fortunately yesterday i had stuck what was left of his little head under his wing, folded the legs under his belly, so today he almost looked like a sleeping duck, very peaceful, but frozen solid.
While i was digging, down in the hollow where i had buried our little runt duckling in 2018, all duckies were standing at the fence, watching curiously what i was doing. After finishing the grave i walked up to the work platform to pick up the little body. Even though i placed the drake into a white $-store bin the all other's knew what was going on! 20 ducks and 8 drakes were carefully watching my every move. I carried the white bin back down to the grave in a way that no duck could look inside, but it was unavoidable that they saw me laying their flock-mate into that hole in the groundā¦
All ducks started to quack immediately, that loud alarm quack, where every duck makes one loud QUACK , then the next one and the next oneā¦ They did that until i had filled up the grave and placed some flowers at it. Then they fell all still. Here is where the little one is now resting in peace:
And here are the ducks, standing at the fence, the little girl at the ladder is Mini Duck, his sister and she misses her brother very much:
After i got back up the hill, she looked at me with that question in her little eyes and it told her "Sorry Mini, there was nothing i could do for him.". She quietly turned around, walked over to her other three hatch-brothers and huddled to them.
Those are the questions still haunting me after today's sad duty of burying the poor little drake.
I could not do that earlier, due to the frozen ground around here yesterday and even after a lot of sunshine today it was difficult. So i had that poor little guy sitting in my wheelbarrow overnight, covered with a piece of plywood. Fortunately yesterday i had stuck what was left of his little head under his wing, folded the legs under his belly, so today he almost looked like a sleeping duck, very peaceful, but frozen solid.
While i was digging, down in the hollow where i had buried our little runt duckling in 2018, all duckies were standing at the fence, watching curiously what i was doing. After finishing the grave i walked up to the work platform to pick up the little body. Even though i placed the drake into a white $-store bin the all other's knew what was going on! 20 ducks and 8 drakes were carefully watching my every move. I carried the white bin back down to the grave in a way that no duck could look inside, but it was unavoidable that they saw me laying their flock-mate into that hole in the groundā¦
All ducks started to quack immediately, that loud alarm quack, where every duck makes one loud QUACK , then the next one and the next oneā¦ They did that until i had filled up the grave and placed some flowers at it. Then they fell all still. Here is where the little one is now resting in peace:
And here are the ducks, standing at the fence, the little girl at the ladder is Mini Duck, his sister and she misses her brother very much:
After i got back up the hill, she looked at me with that question in her little eyes and it told her "Sorry Mini, there was nothing i could do for him.". She quietly turned around, walked over to her other three hatch-brothers and huddled to them.
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I still think a paintball gun would be handy to have if you don't want to do hunter safety classes and a permit. On the flip side I killed a skunk with a bb rifle. My boys were well impressed with their momma. 
