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The downside of having animals
One of our ducks vanished during the day, in all probability taken by a fox. I can't imagine she would stay away from feeding time of her own free will, so something must have happened to her. Obviously we lock them up at night, but they don't wander far from the house and garden during the day, so we thought there wasn't much danger in broad daylight. But no.
When we asked in the village group chat, it turns out several neighbors had had chickens taken during the day by foxes! Would have been nice if they had warned the neighbors about this, instead of using the group chat for useless and annoying suspicion of strangers walking down the road (a completely unremarkable thing for people to do).
I don't blame the fox for doing its foxy thing, obviously. But I am more sad than I expected to be about the duck. They are such funny and endearing creatures--I had grown quite fond of them all, and this one was one of my favorites. She was the younger female, often the first to come running at feeding time, and had been amusing and annoying us with her desultory brooding habits. Runner ducks apparently don't reliably brood, but she was often doing it, so we left her some eggs to let her try. So she would do it for half the day, but then go out with the others and ignore the eggs. We joked that maybe she was holding out for an eight-hour working day if she was going to brood.
Farewell, Ester. You were a lovely duck, and I shed tears for you.
When we asked in the village group chat, it turns out several neighbors had had chickens taken during the day by foxes! Would have been nice if they had warned the neighbors about this, instead of using the group chat for useless and annoying suspicion of strangers walking down the road (a completely unremarkable thing for people to do).
I don't blame the fox for doing its foxy thing, obviously. But I am more sad than I expected to be about the duck. They are such funny and endearing creatures--I had grown quite fond of them all, and this one was one of my favorites. She was the younger female, often the first to come running at feeding time, and had been amusing and annoying us with her desultory brooding habits. Runner ducks apparently don't reliably brood, but she was often doing it, so we left her some eggs to let her try. So she would do it for half the day, but then go out with the others and ignore the eggs. We joked that maybe she was holding out for an eight-hour working day if she was going to brood.
Farewell, Ester. You were a lovely duck, and I shed tears for you.
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I am sorry for your lost duck!
*hugs*
(I am also sorry no one in the group chat mentioned the fox!)
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We would totally have been more careful, if they had said something. Apparently one of the neighbors had seen five foxes (a litter, perhaps?) around their henhouse.
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That is not a small number of foxes! Feh. (Not for the foxes, for the neighbors.)
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We had several geese taken by raccoons when I was a kid. Even though the geese weren't pets, it was surprisingly emotional. You get attached, and used to their funny little ways, and don't like to think about them having a violent death. (Sorry if I just made you think about the same.)
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Yeah, you definitely get attached. It's been a joy to have them, but this is the backside of it, I guess...
By the way, you wrote in my previous duck post that your geese didn't produce fertilized eggs. I read somewhere else that some goose breeds can be incompetent at mating, such that their eggs often don't get fertilized. (Or else they've just figured out recreational sex, like humans...)
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They're such funny little beasts. I still remember feeding one over the course of a long holiday when I was ten that was smaller than all its clan, and had a malformed beak, but was extraordinarily, loudly, trouser-nippingly bossy. Especially regarding croutons.
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(And how rude that none of your neighbors saw fit to mention the foxes around, ugh! You'd really think that would be a priority, or at least an oversight they apologized sincerely for as soon as they realized you didn't know.)
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I mean, we did know that one of the neighbors had previously lost ducks to foxes, but that was because they didn't lock them up at night, which we do. We would have appreciated knowing that it was happening in daytime now.