What Happened with Anna Maria

*Content warning: This post discusses the death of a duck. Please note it is not Anna Maria.

I have decided that I am going to try to go back to writing here every day. First, other social media makes me too sad. My newsfeed is full of animal rescue videos because Facebook’s algorithms are just scary good. Sometimes, the animal rescue videos end happily; sometimes, the videos are sad. When I come across a sad one, I think about it all day and worry and worry about the animal. It’s ridiculous behavior, I know. I am sure the videos are years old anyway. But it’s a struggle I have. Second, I found that writing about our animals and our little farmstead made me happier.

When I quit blogging here every day, I told myself I would keep a journal on my own, where I could write about more than the homestead. Of course, I didn’t do it, so I’m back to writing about the homestead every night. I feel full of good stories right now anyway.

I am going to start with the toughest story to tell because I am dealing with the “Anna Maria situation” yet again tonight. I hoped I would not be back here.

When I quit blogging about Anna Maria in April or May, I didn’t know what we were going to do about her situation. Anna Maria was having to sleep in our house every night. She hated it after a while. On top of this, even putting her out only during the day with Antonio did not work. He was still tearing up her little head. We ended up having to put her in a separate fence where she spent her days alone.

I spent months researching options for the situation that would not have to end in death for one of those ducks. The only option I could find that could work would be building a new area with a new house and get a new duck friend for Anna Maria. We tried separating Antonio some. We tried putting him where he couldn’t even see his girls. But he could still hear his girls. Female runner ducks can be pretty loud. He was hurting himself trying to get to them.

The thought of building a new area and then having additional heavy winter chores for Anna Maria and a friend (and that’s even hoping they would be friends; you don’t know for sure, of course) was too much. I thought about my health struggles and then spent weeks studying Antonio’s behavior to see what in the world was causing this aggression.

It turns out, it was not aggression at all. I spoke to some people online about male ducks getting more aggressive when they got older. Not too many people had older ducks. Most just don’t make it, but out of the few who did, about half reported growing aggression with age. So I studied Antonio to try to figure out what might be triggering the aggression. Was it just his hormones?

I discovered he was not meaning to be aggressive. When he was mating the hens, it was taking a long time for him to be able to “do the deed.” He used to be quick. He was now slow, sometimes very slow. And the act of ducks mating is pretty aggressive. You multiple the amount of time that takes by 10, and there’s going to be some damage. So, there it was. Antonio couldn’t help it, but he was tearing up the girls and going to kill Anna Maria. I am not much for prayer, but I prayed to the land for it to help me know what to do. It was extra difficult to decide because the reality is that Anna Maria could still get picked on by a dominant female, and we would be back to square one pretty much.

Bu I made a decision. I talked to Ron, and he understood and agreed.

We then spent about 8 weeks researching the kindest, most humane way to cull a duck. Ron and I agreed it was too risky to ask someone else to do it, even though Ron did not want to do it. We couldn’t trust others to treat him well. I read blogs and studied anything I could find on the topic. I wanted the impossible. I wanted him to be going along, enjoying his day, and then a second later, be gone.

I will not go into details about the passing of an animal in this space, but I have to tell you it was pretty much that he was walking along, enjoying his day, and then a second later, he was gone. We got so lucky for the best possible way to do the worst possible thing. It’s like Antonio helped us, and I don’t even understand that.

I miss him terribly. As I write these words, I feel some regret. I feel a lot pain. I loved him. And, because of my love for him, I let him hurt the girls too long. I also did not love him enough to make more sacrifices for him in my life, and I feel some guilt about that. Life on the farm is hard sometimes. I do understand why some people do not let themselves get close to the animals, but I believe it’s better to feel pain than nothing at all.

When Antonio was gone, I was able to get closer to our female ducks. He would never let the girls get to close to me. I could see he was starting to make some wounds on two other girls.

I worried the girls would miss him. It’s a hard truth to write, but I am telling you those ducks were so happy. They were a little subdued for about an hour, but by the evening, they were having a duck party. They were playing in the pool without being mounted. They were loud and cheerful. In a few days, the girls were also laying so much better. We went from getting 3 to 4 eggs per day to 5 or 6 eggs per day. These hens are 5 years old! That’s amazing egg production!

It was like everyone was so grateful.

In the weeks after, it was wonderful to watch Anna Maria heal. She’s still blind and still has struggles, of course, but her quality of life was greatly, greatly, greatly improved. This poor duck has suffered in her life thanks to male ducks. As hard as it was to cull Antonio, I am grateful. I love Anna Maria dearly, and I deeply feel for her because of my own trauma in my life. For her, I am willing to do extra. Anything it takes. I’m not sure why other than I feel connected to her.

Anna Maria’s feathers came back so beautifully, and, for the first time in over a year, Anna Maria is able to get treats at snack time. Antonio never let her get anything. It was heartbreaking. It is a joy of my life to watch Anna Maria get some of her favorite treats at snack time. Oh, and she’s been quacking at the back porch when she wants extra snack time. Ron and I always find something. She also gets to sleep with the other ducks, and she doesn’t have to be touched every night by humans who she just can’t fully trust.

However, the night before last, someone was mean to her in the duck house over night. I study her closely every day to keep a close eye on her health. Yesterday, when I let the ducks out in the morning, Anna Maria had some slight injury to her head. This morning, it was worse. Thankfully, the injury was nothing like what Antonio did to her this spring, but I can see where this might be headed. I have to try to nip this.

Tonight, I had to kidnap Anna Maria right after bedtime peas and put her in the garage in a large crate. I thought she was going to be so mad at me. She was not. She leaned into me tonight. I was able to pet her and talk sweet to her. She just let me.

I am sure she will be right back to being grumpy at me in a few days, but tomorrow night, I’m going to see if she will let me pet her and talk sweet to her again when I have to kidnap her after bedtime peas. If she does, I’m going to try to pet her for a long time–just to see what happens.