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| Dabid and Dwebra |
When you raise a baby duck around baby chicks, and she turns out in due time to be not a dame duck but a dude duck, just be aware that you're now about to witness something weird. We were going to name her Deborah, but now he's Dabid. Thank's Tractor Supply!
It's highly possible he thinks he's a chicken, having known nothing but since he hatched. Dabid loves and protects his girl friends with full "Who's your duck daddy?" devotion, and they love him too. He's good for finding yummy wet duck things when out grazing and his chick hens like the lucky duck things he finds too. They're delicious!
Yes, he protects them and loves them like his own, literally. FWIW - Ducks make better lovers, with a round, not pointed beak, and flappy feet that can't dig too deeply, so it doesn't feel so harsh getting grabbed by the neck and pinned down with clawed feet pushing and climbing on your back when it's a duck, instead of a rooster, as I can only suppose. Yes, they were mateys too.
I thought that all Dabid needed was a "real" girl to make him happy, and straighten him out so he could actually enjoy the fruits of his "labors", and of course hers. 😉 So I found him a girl duck who was an outcast from another flock of ducks, a short stocky Rouen duck ... She was an oddball too, just right for my oddball duck. Bringing her home, I thought they'd hit it off just swell, both being weirdos among their own.
Well ... as soon as I put the new girl in his presence, she showed him what a girl duck really was, putting on all her ducky charms. She definitely gave him the mating signal (of course she did! He's a real handsome fella, loved by all the chicks!), and he was on it, like water gettin off on a duck's back! "Great!" I thought, "It's working!" 😊
But afterward, he ignored her as I let them all out of the coop and his last chicken girl jumped out to go outside for some daylight. They ran off together as Miss Duck followed at a distance in what looked and sounded like jilted love-em and leave em complaints ... again the outsider. Poor Dwebra 😔
Shortly after I got the Dwebra, I got a series of roosters for my two last chicken hens, who had survived my hunting dog growing into his natural instincts ... and his balls. I had started with 4 hens, and lots of eggs on the regular, but a few raccoon raids and fencing mistakes later and I'm down to one chicken and Dabe the Duck ... sadly to say, my last viable hen, a Red Sex-link.
I tried separating them off, the ducks and chickens, putting the ducks in the barn because the last rooster, Stallone, wanted to be with the hen and Ducko Dabe was not letting him have his girl, just like the others. But the ducks kept escaping the barn, wanting to be out and about during the day ... and whenever he did, Dabe was not having any rooster nonsense around his girls. Right out of the barn he would run to them, ditching Dwebra, and only wanting to hang with them all day. Whenever Stallone came near Dabe and his babes, Dabe would duck dive and shuck and jive right at him, in a threatening manner.
Everyone knows you don't cock block a rooster, and Ducko Dabe, although giving the worst at first, soon began to learn that lesson, taking the worst at last, as that rooster got tired of his attacks and blocking his advances. Respect the Cock!
Ducko is now missing most of the feathers off the back of his head, as he lunges at Stallone and bites his back and wings, and even pulls out his feathers at times, drawing bits of blood around the neck and wings as it got worse. At the worst point, Stallone tore off a big clump of feathers from the back of Ducko Dabe's head, with a bit of skin attached to the pulled feathers and some bleeding. When I noticed this last attack, I triaged Dabe and stopped the bleeding. I was relieved to see he was okay, and it just a flesh wound as I kept telling him, "I hope you've learned your lesson, Ducko. You drew first blood." 😉
Sadly, shortly after that event. Stallone was mobbed by the dog as he jumped the fence to go roost by the house at dusk one evening (his favorite place) and I forgot to shut the dog inside in time. I didn't notice he was gone until I woke up the next day and didn't hear him crowing.
He was my favorite rooster-man. Such a gentle man with me and the kids. So friendly and calm, he would always come up and see what you were doing if you stood around long enough looking interesting, and especially if you got down on the ground. He'd be right up in your business, like a consultant on whatever you were working on. He'd even jump on my back and shoulders when kneeling on the ground, and when I stood up to get something he would ride around like a parrot, clucking and crowing in my ear, sometimes grooming my hair.
I mourned him well when I found him dead. I hugged and carried him around until I could finally lay him to rest. Of course, I was angry at the dog and angry at myself. The dog didn't mean to kill him, he's just too "Lenny and the Rabbits" with things he loves too intensely. When I finally found him under the large pine tree in the backyard the next morning, Stallone was intact with all his feathers and no signs of injury. I'm guessing that the dog grabbed him too hard while he was chasing him around and bit him with his big slobbery mouth when he finally caught him, which must have punctured something, but he didn't tear him up or eat him in any way. Doggo probably just wondered why the rooster had stopped playing after he recovered from his incredible hulk moment. I wondered how long the rooster had lived before he died under that tree. The dog had gotten a hen just like this before and still living I took her inside and treated and disinfected her wounds and put her in a box under a heat lamp. She only lasted that day before she passed.
Shortly after this, when my last rooster died, my last hen was taken by raccoons. Yeah, it's really sad and heartbreaking, even now, but as a silver lining, now Dabe and Dwebra are being regular ducks together, with no more barnyard brawls, and a lot of duck doins ... and she's sitting on a nest of fertile eggs!
I was also able to get fertile eggs from my hens before they were killed and they're now in the incubator and should hatch soon ... So my chickens will live on in their offspring if and when they hatch ... I sure hope I get another chicken like Stallone - I miss him the most. 😥
I think the coming Easter will be a Happy Easter since that's about when my chicken eggs are due to hatch! By that time I should have all my fencing up and the ducks and chickens will have their own places, and hopefully, by then, Ducko Dabe will be fully content to simply be a duck. He is so now.
P.S. - If Stallone is resurrected this Easter, with a son of his hatching out among all my incubated eggs, I will call him Rambo! ... Or Jesus Junior, because in my book Stallone was a son of god among all the roosters I've known before ... and I've known enough roosters to know a great one when he comes along .... Just like Jesus. 😎
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| Stallone Crow'n |
