Ducks in Diapers

Odd?  Yep.

Unusual?  A little, maybe.  But as I looked into it more, it seems there's a slew of people who keep ducks as house pets, and therefore have diapered them.

Huh.

I'm not thinking this little duck will be a house pet forever, but he/she sure does LOVE my daughter and people in general, and so the only way to really make him/her happy is to keep him/her inside.

Remember this little one?

This one hatched on the 26th of July, and was adopted by my daughter.  He (we'll call him/her that for simplicity's sake)became very attached to my daughter and all people and hated being alone.

Enter duck #2.

This little yellow may have been kidnapped from Susie, his/her mom the following week.  In our defense, we did it so the little grey wasn't lonely anymore and would stop yelling, which was really getting tiring.

Then I noticed that Susie's eggs were disappearing.  And then her ducklings were disappearing.  First one duck was found smothered.  Another was drowned.  Then another (that I didn't even see hatch) was smothered.  Her missing eggs?  Still missing.

That was that.  I took the one remaining baby away, and then there were three.  These two little nutter-butters,

and a small grey and yellow one that Susie and the other ducks hadn't been allowing to eat.  It is remarkably smaller than the other two (obviously) well-fed ones, though they are all the same age, give or take a day or two.  The only eggs left in the house were being sat on by the stink-eye duck, so I took them--all three.  They started to hatch yesterday.

But Little Grey?  Well, he's thrilled to have friends, and lives outside in the brooder most of the time, but he really, really likes people.  So we bring him in.  But he poops.  What's a girl to do?  Diaper him.

This blurry picture is of Little Grey wearing a duck diaper made out of an old sock.  It's not my design--I found it on some Internet chat board.  But it does the job of containing the mess and it's the only way Little Grey is allowed inside.  I did not know that this was such an art form.  But hey, it is.  And ducks are nice, as pets go, but whether or not Little Grey is going to be allowed to stay inside as a house duck, I doubt.  He's a DUCK, for goodness sakes. For now, though, it's OK.  We'll see where this takes us....