Brown-o and White-o’s Insect Diet
December 17th 2007 21:03
When my sister first got our quackers, like most people who have not been raised on a farm, we had no idea what to feed them. The people at the pet store told her to buy duck pellets, which they sold by the kilo, and to give them water to drink. This sounded really simple. We had no idea that as Brown-o and White-o grew, they started wanting more variety – namely insects – until one hot day when we noticed the ducks would try to catch flies with their bills whenever one flew near them. This led to my sister killing many flies with her tennis racket and collecting the bodies in a small plastic container for them. When she collected sufficient dead flies, she would bring the container over to our ducks and they would gobble them up in an instant.
On another day, the sun had just come out after it had been raining for some time. The ducks had been out enjoying getting soaked and now it was hot again. The ducks decided to hang around the brick wall in our backyard, where it was shady and cool. That’s all they were doing – or so we thought. We then noticed the ducks seemed to be scanning the walls for something and it didn’t take us long to find out what it was: snails! Yes, our ducks were patiently waiting for the snails to come out after a long rain and once they spotted one, they would race over to it and gobble it up in a second. Again, this led to my sister hunting all around the house for snails. When she found one, she would lift it up by its shell and place it in the same plastic container. The snail would slide all around the container and my sister would feed it to the ducks.
As much as I loved my ducks, this was all far too nauseating for me, especially watching the container turn slimy from the snails. I had no problems with my ducks catching snails and flies out of their own volition, but be damned if I was going to get it on the act myself. Not only that, our ducks got snail slime on their bills and my sister even claimed they got snail breath! I never checked this out myself, the thought of wondering what crushed garden snail must smell – let alone – taste like was far too revolting to contemplate.
On another day, the sun had just come out after it had been raining for some time. The ducks had been out enjoying getting soaked and now it was hot again. The ducks decided to hang around the brick wall in our backyard, where it was shady and cool. That’s all they were doing – or so we thought. We then noticed the ducks seemed to be scanning the walls for something and it didn’t take us long to find out what it was: snails! Yes, our ducks were patiently waiting for the snails to come out after a long rain and once they spotted one, they would race over to it and gobble it up in a second. Again, this led to my sister hunting all around the house for snails. When she found one, she would lift it up by its shell and place it in the same plastic container. The snail would slide all around the container and my sister would feed it to the ducks.
As much as I loved my ducks, this was all far too nauseating for me, especially watching the container turn slimy from the snails. I had no problems with my ducks catching snails and flies out of their own volition, but be damned if I was going to get it on the act myself. Not only that, our ducks got snail slime on their bills and my sister even claimed they got snail breath! I never checked this out myself, the thought of wondering what crushed garden snail must smell – let alone – taste like was far too revolting to contemplate.
Photo by Maren Winter. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
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