Duck Escape

Ducklings are cute, but they have the nasty habit of, in a nanosecond, polluting any water they may have access to. They probably don't care a whit if they're swimming in a mucky mess, but it offends my sensibilities as a caretaker. Every day or so while Audrey was gone, I lifted the edge of their outdoor cage, retrieved their swim dish, dumped it, and refilled it with sparkling H2O.  Until the other day. 

At that time, the only way INTO their pen was to lift the side, because their "pen" consisted of an upside-down garden cart that had wire mesh sides.  So you had to lift the whole wagon, or at least most of it, every time you wanted to move anything in or out of the pen.

The water needed changing, so I lifted the wagon side and caught up Abernathy.  Buford, however, made a run for it, and gleefully escaped into the wide world, peeping the joy of freedom at top volume and circling his little legs around so fast they looked like the leg-wheels you see on fast-running critters in cartoons.  I chased, trying to nab the speedy Buford with only one free hand, since Abernathy was beating his little wings violently in my other palm, trying to break free and loudly cheering encouragement to his friend.  Round the spirea bush we went, and then Buford made a dash for the elm tree; we circled it a time or two, and then back to the spirea.  I ducked  :)   and pounced and swiped the air with my free hand, while Abernathy cheered and waved his downy pom poms.  John was in the kitchen, just the other side of a glass patio door, obliviously reading the paper.  I knew he was there, but I didn't dare leave the chase to get help, for fear that Buford would have competely disappeared when I returned. 

Buford's legs may be faster, but my brain is bigger.  I chased him into a corner, caught my prize, and stuck them both in a small indoor cage in the house while I pondered my next move.  The birds are too big, noisy and messy for me to put up with them in the kitchen any more, but I can't risk a cat showing up during a ten or fifteen minute duck rodeo every time the water needs changing.  So now the ducks have a new home.

This old stock tank, with big rusted-out holes in the bottom, was lounging around by the cattle pens.  I took a SawsAll to it to completely remove half of the bottom, and you can see the rest of my handiwork.  It is not perfect---a REAL DuckMaster would have put some screen windows in the sides for ventilation and better duck-viewing---but it was fairly quick, is easily moveable from spot to spot, was cheap and didn't require a trip to town for supplies.  Best of all, one can catch and remove the ducks, if one so wishes, without giving them free range access to a thousand acres of earth and two cats.

Stock tanks are multi-purpose.  When they are new, you can fill them with water and let your livestock drink out of them.  When they are old, you can make them into a duck pen.  Or, if you don't have ducks or livestock, you can make them into decorative planters -- read all about it here.