Tyranasarous Rex and Cat Duck Are No More
Sorry – I forgot to say on the 27th September…
We put Tyranasarous Rex and Cat Duck out for their first whole day outside with the other six adult ducks (which were older by about a week) and we got home to find them deaded.
We figured that the three oldest ducklings had integrated with the six fully grown ducks so well that there would be absolutely no problem putting the last two ducklings outside with them when they reached the same age. So on a Sunday morning we took the ducks from the box they were living-in under the stairs and released them into the big hutch we built a fair few months ago now. They had food and water for the day so we left to go Alton Towers with Paula’s family. When we retuned later that day at 8pm on what was quite a warm day really, I went to check on the ducklings in the waning autumn light and I couldn’t find them anywhere. After not being able to find them I got a bit perplexed and went back to the house to inform Paula that I couldn’t find them and I thought that they had escaped. It took me a few moments of thinking but then I realised that even though they were young – they weren’t so small that they could squeeze out of one of the small holes around the cage or under the duck house. I went back to the cage to seek the little critters out, taking with me this time; a torch. The first thing I did this time after lifting the lid on the cage was look in the water tub with the torch and I noticed a glint of yellow beneath the water line. The two ducks had obviously got inside the tub and because the water level had got so low from the other ducks drinking it they had been unable to get out of it. We think they got cold being in the water, which was only about 2 or 3 inches deep after I had removed their cold and dead carcasses from it. Even though the water was only sooo shallow (the ducks could stand up quite easily in that) Paula informed me that she had read up that ducklings need to retain quite a high body temperature of about 30°C.
So our potential ducks out of 7 eggs is now down to 3 ducklings.
Good news is that we have had an egg out of the adult ducks everyday since our first one was laid the other week! We think it’s just the one duck laying at the moment and she lays it in the same place every morning for us to pick out and eat ^_^