Ducklings on the Loose
With the weather warming up, the kids (3,2, and 8 months) and I decided to bring all 26 ducklings outside to let them get some fresh air, run around, and entertain us for a little while one morning. Having had ducklings before, I knew that I definitely did NOT want to have three little kids and 26 ducklings loose in our front yard with access to the woods, the neighbor’s cornfield, etc. To avoid this recipe for disaster, Marie (3) and Hope(2) and I built a triangular pen by wrapping knee-high garden fencing around two little peach trees and anchoring the third point with a stake. I also used a wire crib mattress frame that is used as a trellis to extend one side of the pen slightly. We then added a small tarp over the corner for some shade, filled up a shallow container for a little pool, and had fun building up a little ramp with rocks for the ducklings to access the pool.
We got our little buddy David (8 months) situated in his stroller in the shade so he could watch the fun and tipped our smelly peeping bin of ducklings into their temporary home. They didn’t stay long. We neglected to realize that there was a slight opening where the fencing connected, that there was a 2 inch gap under a part of the pen because our entire property is insanely unlevel/hilly, and that a few of the spaces in the crib mattress frame were larger than others. Of course these were the first things the ducklings found.
The little flock made a beeline for the hole in the fence and once the first intrepid explorer broke through, his victory peeps encouraged the others to follow. Marie & I dashed to cut them off, laughing and yelling about where they were headed. Normally Marie will panic if her pencil rolls away, so to see her jump into “emergency rescue mode” without melting down was surprising . Hope of course trailed behind them, eliminating any chance of us being able to herd the ducklings toward her into the pen. We started catching them instead, Marie grabbing one at a time in her sweet chubby little hands and me swooping up three or four to try to be more efficient. Finally we got them all back into the pen, grabbed enough scrap wire to fix both the frame and the gap in the fencing, and went to work patching holes (toddler-style).
We’re pretty scary though, so the ducklings thought it would be best to launch another escape under the fence where it didn’t quite touch the ground. Having already been in the garden, they decided running towards the home of their predators i.e. the woods, would be more of an adrenaline rush. Once we noticed the escape, we stashed the couple of the stragglers back in their transport bin and chased the rest down. Finally we intercepted the whole flock as they began vanishing under the VERY prickly briars on the edge of the woods. By circling around and kicking the briar bushes to scare them out and then herding them back toward the pen we retrieved all our little adventurers. Again we repaired the fence while the ducklings took a very welcome nap in a cute peeping pile of fluff.
I was pretty proud of my finally duck-proof pen, and extremely proud of my little helpers. Unfortunately a few days later my husband pulled up my pen to mow the lawn then used the big duck enclosure to contain the ducklings for a few minutes while he moved the stock-trough they have been living in. Surprise surprise they popped right through the fence and were halfway up the steep weedy bank to the farmer’s cornfield across from our house before he found them all.
But that’s a story for another time. Moral of the story; if you want something, even if it is crazy and seems pointless to others, keep working toward your goal even if the world keeps interfering & it takes two, three, or twelve attempts to make something work.