Mystery of the Alarmed Avians

When I got home tonight, I randomly picked up one of the ducks huddled next to my car, smelled it, and thereby solved the “Mystery of the Alarmed Avians”.

Yesterday I found all of ducks not only out of their pen but scattered across the entire farm like confetti. I found clearly terrified ducks huddling in the bales, in the chicken coop, in between our vehicles. But a head count showed everyone was accounted for and nobody appeared physically harmed, just terrified.

Now whatever made them move had to be pretty motivating because our Muscovy drakes are HUGE—they definitely can’t fly and care barely hop small sticks on the ground, much less a 3 foot fence. And everyone else has their flight feathers clipped after they decided it was super fun to fly into the horses’ water tank and make it a duck bath. And my methods were working because not a duck had left the pen all winter—they have several calf huts filled with straw, a private pond and endless food. Life is good in the duck pen.

Now I figured it had to have been some sort of predator after them—critters are hungry and on the move after this terribly cold spell we have had. But with everyone alive and unharmed, I assumed Punzi must have done her job exceptionally well. But I still wanted to know what it was to have the bravado to come walking into her territory. We haven’t had sign of a predator on our actual property in over a year—not a coyote, not a opossum, not a raccoon, heck she even scared the Bald Eagle hunting our white chickens away. LGDs for the win!

And with my random duck sniff test, I had my answer: A skunk!

It turns out, about 1/4 of my ducks REEK of skunk. And I went over to their duck house and sure enough, it smells of skunk too! And ALL the food from their little bulk feeder is fine. I am betting a skunk was roused from semi-hibernation by last weekend’s warm weather and decided to grab himself of a snack of the duck’s high protein waterfowl feed...it must taste pretty good because I’ve seen the cats try it! And then all heck broke loose when the ducks freaked out to leave their hut.

I don’t know how well a duck can smell but I coaxed everyone back into their pen and put their feed way away from the stinky calf hut, which seemed to somewhat satisfy them. I still don’t know how they managed to get out, but with snow and extreme cold overnight tonight, I hope they stay put. They have 3 more huts unsullied for sleeping and a dog on high alert now. Hopefully Mr. Skunk went back to bed so we can all have some peace and quiet!