Waterfowl Rescue question

[LAMchop]

I appreciate everyone sharing their perspectives. I've never dealt with any rescue organization (although sometimes I feel like one, with all the stray cats and special-needs cows

), so its helpful to hear the experiences of others.

Chickensioux- I knew they placed a variety of fowl, but I didn't know they ever had pigeons. I took in a wayward wedding dove a few years ago and I dearly miss him, and the sweet cooing!

 

[DuckLady]

Jennifer is a caring hardworking Federally Licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator. While she is licensed for wildlife, she also takes in and finds homes for chickens, ducks, geese, pigeons and just about any domestic bird you can think of.

She is awesome and knows her stuff. I was privileged to spend a week with her in Charlotte observing her and working with her on rescues and attending the Duck Rescue Network Conference a couple years ago. I helped her with a Great Blue Heron, Canada Geese and other wildlife as well as a domestic waterfowl roundup at a local mall pond.

Jennifer cares about the animals first and foremost. If she upsets a human in the interest of an animal she has tended, well, that's the way it is.

The reason she has the restriction on breeding is simple. There are so many ducks and geese needing homes that she feels it is silly to hatch out ducks that so often get dumped. And she is the one who gets the calls in her area to take them in and try to find homes for them. Encouraging breeding just adds to her workload and takes away from other birds who need actual medical and long term care.

Her way or the highway? Maybe. I can't fault her for that. But she is the one shelling out thousands of dollars out of her own pocket to rehab and care for these birds, helped by donations that may or may not come in. I know this personally. She is choosy about the people adopting from her because of all the work, time, love and money she has put into them.

And she certainly does know that muscovies fly. She warned me on one of the rescues we did together to hang on to a hen a certain way, but I didn't listen.

And I got to go hunt her down again.

If I were closer and if I wanted to adopt a duck or goose, the first place I would go is CWR.

Oh and I sent Jen an email to come and answer questions. Hopefully she will.

 

[waterfowlrescue]

I have Muscovys roosting in the eaves of my barn. Terrie can tell you the class I taught at the conference she attended has a slide specifically on Muscovys being perching ducks. In fact I taught the same slides at several zoos years before the presentation Terrie saw. I know muscovys perch/fly but that doesn't mean they cant be protected by weather or from predators. The ability to fly doesnt always keep you safe from predators if it did i would not have spent 3 weeks doctoring a male muscovy with cougar bites all over his body. Mallards fly even better and we get them in with predator wounds all the time too.

The few chickens we do get off the truck are usually euthanized because their injuries are severe. Will i take them? Yes! Because I wont let any animal suffer regardless of whether someone else places no value on their lives. I am not a vegetarian and I don't have any problems with people who raise their own food. I think its much better than factory farm birds but once an animal comes to the rescue it gets the same treatment as everyone else. Snakes, frogs, chickens it doesn't matter if it limps to my door it gets help.

The chickens we have now came from a organization hoarder case and are bantam breeds that are not factory farm laying hens. We had the National organization at our facility for inspection before they placed birds with us. I got a letter from their Director this week praising our group for its care and knowledge and for what he calls our above and beyond efforts.

As Terrie said when someone else spends all their own money and puts all their free time into a rescue they should be able to make the rules. You can choose to follow them or as so eloquently stated above you can work with a rescue that is more along the guidelines your looking for. I got turned down for adopting a dog one year because I wanted my dog to be locked outside in the yard for a few hours while i was at work. Its a large yard and he had food and shelter but they required 100% indoor dog. My dog sleeps on my bed and is spoiled rotten but he is 200 pounds. So regardless of his nature he knocks things over when he is unattended and the crate training was intolerable for him because no crates are big enough in my opinion to be humane. I wouldn't be slamming the dog rescue all over the Internet or lie to them, I just found another one who worked with me to adopt a dog.

As far as the breeding is concerned we have had problems with unscrupulous breeders. Some just think they are going to get free birds from us and they intend to sell them. On one poultry forum i had someone emailing me to discuss adoptions and found his ad on craigs list selling my ducks with photos. In his email he couldn't afford the adoption fees and was trying to talk me down on prices for a couple of birds. If you cant afford the adoption fees, then you cant afford to have animals, they require food to eat which costs money too. Or they think they will get free birds so they can breed and sell them with no regard for whom they get sold too. I have a breeder by my house that sells his ducks for meat, if you want to go home and have sex with them or for live hunting decoys. I have seen it all. If you don't care who gets your ducks and they are just profit for you then you wont get ducks from us. My favorite is people get ducks like Muscovys and think its cute to have babies and then call us later and tell us to come get the 400 ducks they hatched or else they will kill them and its our fault!

Saying all that, if someone is responsible and HONEST!! If the ducks reproduce and you are letting them hatch because you have responsible good homes for them I wouldn't have a problem with that. If your sitting down at the flea market peddling ducklings for 2 bucks to each kid with coins in their pocket and then throwing them in the dumpster when your ready to go home (that happened to me last month) then don't bother. We eat our eggs and so does some of the other birds at the rescue. We also donate the rest to the food pantry so I don't have issues with people eating or selling eggs either.

If I spend months feeding and rehabbing a bird I am not going to just dump it out the first place I can. I want them to be well cared for. I know that not all breeders are bad apples but we see it all and have had so many people with bad intentions that we have to be cautious. I would prefer that people just adopt ducks of course. We wouldn't be a responsible rescue (like cat and dogs) if we advocated breeding when we have 200 birds we cant find homes for. And we get calls for hundreds of ducks all over the USA that need homes and we cant find them.

Unfortunately its the places who sell ducks like tractor supply who keep us busy. People buy them on impulse and then dump them in the nearest park, lake or neighborhood. We have to fish them out after they are mauled by dogs, hit by cars, thrown into a fire pit by drunk teenagers. Nothing surprises me anymore.

 

[LAMchop]

waterfowlrescue- Thank you so much for replying! You have my utmost respect and admiration for the work that you do.