A Tragic Accident

I had meant this post to be very happy and bubbly full of stories and videos about their first swims and walks outside, but sadly this is not the case those things will have to wait (stay tuned for a more light hearted and bubbly post). One of our dear Cayuga ducklings (a solid black one) now rests forevermore beneath a holly tree in the woods. We had two Cayugas and they became one of my favorites because of how friendly they were, and how pretty they were going to be. These past few days have been extremely wet and rainy the ducks area was in desperate need of more bedding, a.k.a. leaves,( They live in the chicken house now ) but because everything outside was soaked we decided to rake up the stray leaves in the back of the chicken house where we keep feed bags both empty and full, as well as other assorted junk. It was getting dark so we (me and my dad) just raked them in. The next morning everything was fine I spent too much of my morning in with them instead of doing school feeding them clover and cuddling both Cayuga’s as well as the others. I didn’t notice any of the long white strings that you pull off when opening a bag of feed. If I see any of the aforesaid strings I usually jump to remove them, but this piece must have been covered up. That afternoon when I went into their little area to take them for their daily swim they all came peeping up to me except for one. I was stunned to say the least I ran out and called Dad and Philip who were outside practicing baseball. She had tried to swallow a string about a yard long and got most of it down before it got tied around her little bill. I felt really bad knowing that I could have been prevented it so easily, but as Dad says these things happen. Needless to say the chicken house has been scoured for any bits and pieces of trash. In honor of the sweet little thing I give you this extremely cute picture with all 11 duckies on their first excursion outside. ( it is now the desktop back ground for several of our monitors)