Victoria has picked up a habit of just disappearing and then reappearing just as mysteriously. She’s in the ‘frequent flyer’ club, so she’s quite adept at getting over our fences.

She’s been quite cagy about what she’s up to, so we have had to put on our detective Clousteau hats, and discretely watch where she goes without her noticing. That meant watching her browse through the garden in her own sweet time for a loonnng time until she surreptitiously disappeared under our house.

It took some time to find her as she found about the most awkward spot to get to.

Most likely, she is sitting on some eggs.

It was easy clipping our chickens wings, to stop them from flying, but the ducks were a whole new ball game.

First of all, you need some armour because of their claws (an old motorcycle jacket works). then you need to catch them with a net (a fishing net works OK), which is fine for the first two or three, but then the remaining ones think smarter and are more cunning.

We only caught 7 out of 9  on our first attempt, after 1 of them flew over the fence, and the other one climbed up the wire netting in an act of desperation.

We then waited until afternoon feeding time to finish the job, and in the end I’m chasing these ducks around a paddock until they got more exhausted than I did.

So, in the end, it was a good day and I wont need to do this job for another 6 months or so.

https://youtu.be/ASE_xYpLv1E?si=E5tyaGt7ptDhpDUg

One of our adult ducks has developed the canny ability to get out of anywhere we put them for the night. There’s no obvious holes in our fences, so we think she’s able to fly just enough to get over the fence.

The solution to this is to chop the outer feathers on one wing only, it’s a simple harmless procedure (once you have caught the duck that is)

Meanwhile, our little ducklings are managing to escape through the wire netting fence. it’s quite surprising how they can contort their little bodies to wiggle through, leaving an exasperated mother stuck on the other side of the fence.

So, I’ve had to replace the wire netting with a much finer type to stop all these prison breaks unexpected departures.