Wednesday, June 16 was one of the worst days of my life.
I have been sick with a cold. Dragged my sick butt to work Mon. and Tues. wondering why, but hey it was only a cold. Wed. I was feeling a little better. I get off work at 4:30, and about every other day I run errands. Should I go buy more duck food tonight, or wait until tomorrow? I'm still sick, just go home and do it tomorrow
Get home about 4:50, bring in the mail, put it on my table and am ready to go change into my grubbies for a few chores, when I glance out the back window and see something is wrong. Something does not look right with my ducks. They were fine when I left for work at 7:45 am. What could go wrong in broad day light in my fenced yard?
But I go right out. I see dead ducks all around, except for 1 injured one. I pick him up take him inside and wrap him in a towel and go back out. I am still trying to get an accurate count. I am in shock and not thinking clear. There should be 2 dark mallard looking males, and 9 white ducks. They are Mallard mix, but only two mallard looking ones were left.
Domestic ducks do not fly more than a few feet off the ground. Their bodies are too heavy for their wings. Even though they are a cross, they seldom can fly very high or long. They laid tons of eggs, but they were also pets. Maybe not the kind that sit on your lap, but I loved them very much. I so much enjoyed watching them walk around and swim in their little wading pool, explore, just live their lives. Its hard not to smile when you watch a duck walk. They were all hatched here from eggs their parents and grandparents produced. The five youngest I hand raised. Their mom had some issues. So they were in my bedroom from day one to about 5 weeks.
Now here they are. Almost my whole family dead. I take the injured one in my room while I change into something I don't care about getting blood on. It didn't take long, but by the time I was done, he had died. His wounds didn't seem necessarily fatal, but who knows how much blood he lost before I got home, plus the shock. It would have helped to have at least one survivor.
Back out to still try and get an accurate count. I want to make sure there is not an injured one hiding in the bushes I could possibly save. Still hoping for some survivor. One of the younger ones I had had raised (maybe 6 1/2 yrs ago), has been mostly eaten. Some of the others are bloody, but mostly intact. Some don't seem hurt badly. Were their necks broken, or just the slow blood loss, or the shock. I don't know. So I gather them all up, except for the half eaten one and the one still inside. Yes, they are all there, and all dead.
I look around for some clues to what happened. The fact that it was broad day light and only one was eaten, make me think a dog somehow got in my fenced yard. Find a large pile of dog poop. Yes, it could be coyote, but don't think a coyote would leave so much. So pretty sure it was dog.
Now what?? Normally when I loose an animal I bury it. It takes me all day to dig a deep enough hole in my clay soil. Dig, soak, dig. But I do it. Once, a few years ago a raccoon came in and killed two one night. And there have been a few killed over the what, about 18 years I have had ducks. Its sad and traumatic, but eventually I/we go on. My family was smaller, but I still had one. This is different. They are all gone, and I would be afraid to get more.
Still, what now? Do I start digging? I am still in shock and can't think. Let alone face the enormity of single handedly digging a pond size hole. Of course I would have to call in sick, but would that even give me enough time. (not to mention strength and energy for all of this). Plus I don't want to leave them all outside attracting bugs, and possibly more predators. No room in the freezer for 11 ducks. They already have ants. What do I do? Can I call someone? Who?
Maybe a mass cremation. Spiritually it seems worse to not have their body spend eternity where they and all their family has always been. But I have some serious time and logistic problems now. By now its 6:10 and many places that might help are closed. I call my vet office they are open, but the company that they use for cremation is not, she does not know what they would charge. Says I could bring them in and they would store them till they can find out. They close in 45 min, so I must decide soon. What if I find it way out of my price range. It will be bad enough picking them all up fast to go there, I sure don't want to go back and retrieve them. Plus I want them handled with respect. She was guessing it might be around $65. If that was for all, fine, but $65 x 11? Not fine.
Call the Humane Society. She tells me the company they use. But of course the dept. that handled that is closed, so she does not have any details. Go on line and check out the two companies suggested so far. Of course no prices are given anywhere. Apparently this is referred to as "after care". One of them lists a phone number for emergency/after hours pick up. Ron R. I call and his wife answers. They are in the car, and he is driving. Its a really bad connection. She says they will pull over so he can talk to me. They are currently about 35 miles away on the way to a meeting. He offers to come get them and I can either do a mass cremation, no ashes returned thing for $200. or a mass burial for $100. I believe this is way lower than his usual rates, he was offering me a special group rate under the circumstances. Its not a burial place I can visit. He said its a place that is slated to become a Wildlife Refuge. No idea if that is true. But I desperately want to believe it. Of all the sucky options, that seems like the best one.
By the time he gets there I have tried to tell each of them goodbye, and how terribly sorry I was that this happened to them, and that I didn't protect them well enough. I was cutting flowers to go with them when he came. He was very nice, very professional. I think it may have been the best option under the terrible circumstances. I feel bad they are not just dead, but dead and gone, with out spending eternity here with the others, and no little ceremony like the others got. But it was a relief to not have to spend all day today digging a GIANT hole to bury them. My 16 1/2 old cat is not doing well either. I will have to deal with loosing her soon also. But at least its natural causes, and won't be a big surprise, I have had lots of time to kinda prepare my mind for it.
I hope they understand how bad I feel and how sorry I am. Oddly I am not a religious person at all even though it may sound like that when I speak of this. I just have to think of an animal after life weather I need to believe in one for humans or not. Does not make sense. But they did not deserve this. They did nothing wrong. It was totally senseless.
They have always been free range. After the raccoon incident I started to build a pen. All the predator incidents have been at night, and almost all in Nov. and Dec. So my thought was as much as I don't want to build a pen. Don't know how to build one, have no good place, and don't want to pen them up, if I just do it at night for a couple of the most dangerous months I will....if I can convince them to go in the pen at night.
I started the next day. It took me 2 1/2 months of weekends to finish it. By then the most dangerous months were over. So the plan was Nov. 1 to the middle of Jan. I would pen them at night. It took me several nights to convince them all to go in the pen at night. At first I was terrified something would get the ones I had not convinced to go in the first couple nights. Terrified something would somehow get in, then they would have no chance to get away. But eventually they got used to the new routine. They all went in at sunset, and came out at breakfast time. It worked. We safely made it through the worst times, and about the middle of Jan. with some fear, I allowed them to go back to staying out all the time. Just used the pen to give ones not feeling well some safe rest time.
There is nothing cuter than a baby duck, and even the adults are cute with lots of personality. They look (and act) much like the AFFLEC duck. But they are messy, and they were all glad to be out of the pen, back to their lives and the safely of late spring, almost summer. Then this.
Then after they were gone, and I am wandering around lost and crying my eyes out, I see a very large blond dog in my back yard. I grab a rake and go chase him and yell at him. He went over the back 5 ft. fence. He must live there. I know they have a lot of dogs. I seldom look over the back fence, but he does not look like one I remember seeing last I looked. One or two really mean looking ones I do remember I don't see. This one looked like maybe a mix between a German Shepard and a lab. Very big, maybe 2 or 3 years old. I have no idea why these people have dogs. They are fenced into a space about the size of a family room just behind my yard. Yesterday I saw 4 dogs. I never see anyone play with them, or walk them, or take them inside. What the hell is the reason to have a dog like that? This one didn't look mean. Just bored, totally unsocialized, untrained, unexorcised. Nothing good to do. Is he new, or has he been there a while and something just set him off? What happened to the others? I wanted to hurt him. Not seriously, but I wanted to hear him yelp, and feel some fear. I threw some stuff at him, but kept missing. I was so glad the ducks were gone when he came back. I would have totally lost it if I saw him tearing one apart. I did not go talk to the owners. Obviously they are not good animal people. (and this is Calif. not Mexico or Alabama...Califs. as a whole, know better than treating animals like this). There was nothing they could say that would make me feel any better.
After I gave up throwing stuff at the dog, I called my friend Marilyn. She was appropriately shocked, and saddened and really seemed to under stand my trauma.
Then I cried some more, took a shower and sat in front of the t.v. drinking my big glass of wine. Called work and left a message I would be out sick today. Slept as long as I possibly could. Then I woke and the horrible image was back in my head and I could not get it out. Spent most of the day vegetating in front of the t.v. I can't do anything. I can't open the curtains out back. I can't see or hear how empty it is. All my beautiful flowers out there, and I don't want to see the back yard at all now. How will I hang out there without seeing dead bodies every where I look? Its 4:00 and I have not gotten dressed. Why bother now? I will sneak out after dark to take out garbage, its trash eve. I will try and go back to work tomorrow. I will try and not burst into tears at work.
I am kinda a hermit. I have very little family, none close by. My animals are everything to me. How do people survive loosing their whole human families? I know it happens. They may get more sympathy, but how do they go on? My friends can't understand how I can hear bad human stories and let it go, but nothing bad about animals. For some reason it has always been way harder to get the animal pictures out of my head than the human pics. I am not a big drinker. I needed it last night, but I can't do that all the time. How to get the picture out of my head is a really big thing now. Maybe Sat. I will try and open the back curtains and go out back. Not today or tomorrow. I would sit at my table and look out back. I don't want to now.
What will I do on the weekend? Much of it is usually cleaning duck pools and gardening? Will this ruin gardening for me forever? It has certainly taken away the feeling of safety and serenity my garden gave me. How do I ever get any of it back?
