Their behavior is fascinating!
Animal behavior is absolutely fascinating. If you've never read Konrad Lorenz's "King Solomon's Ring", check out a copy from your local library or buy a paper back copy. It may very well change your view of animals for the rest of your life. More and more you will appreciate the complex things that go on as you watch poultry.
You can ask your poultry questions and get answers, though you may need to be patient and allow your animals to get into a situation where they can give you answers. You can, of course, put them into such situations. Consider this:
I took my mid-day cup of coffee down to the duck yard for some rest and a bit of conversation with the ducks. We talk to each other.
I was curious about how well the ducks could see, and I asked them, "How well can you see?"
One responded, "Quack!", which I interpreted as, "Do you have any more of that delicious whole corn?" Another duck said, "QUUAAAAKKKK!!!" which I interpreted as, " Is that Tracy the Cat with you again?? Get him outta here!"
Their response to the question of duck vision came in a few minutes. I was sitting, drinking my coffee, when suddenly all of the ducks tilted their heads skyward. I looked up and expected to see a squirrel scurry along the branch of a nearby oak tree. No squirrel. Perhaps a bluejay had flown into the tree? I looked carefully, but no bluejay.
The ducks continued to look skyward, and then I saw it. A tiny speck very, very high in the sky...up, up near cloud base. A turkey vulture which we call "buzzards" here in the South. Definitely a turkey vulture...tail longer, wings with more dihedral, less stable flight than the black vulture. Relax ducks, it isn't a hawk.
A tiny, tiny speck, and they saw it before I did. I have read that hawks have vision comparable to our view through 8x binoculars. I can believe that. I also believe that ducks have very good vision, at least that's what they told me.
Now that the gray death has started stalking my ducks, I've had to make some changes. I've been putting the ducks into crates at night to protect them from the fox. I use two of the large plastic dog crates and a smaller wire cage that I made.
To catch the ducks, a large fish landing net is very helpful, and with the tempfence shifted to make a blind alley it's easy enough to herd most of the ducks into the trap, catch them, and coop them for the night. Sometimes one or two will get into the ducktent area and cause a problem as they run to the side opposite me.
In the other fenced area with the three McMurray runners and Orf (a Pekin-runner mix, an orphan, the last of the Tony Padgett ducks I hatch in the spring of '97) it's a bit more difficult. The tempfence surrounds grape vines, blueberry bushes, and fruit trees which make a varied habitat with plenty of places for the ducks to evade my net. What to do???
Charlie the border collie was the answer. Now that he's working a bit with sheep, he "turns on" to runner ducks. When he gets into the pen with the ducks, he'll circle then perhaps try to slash a bit but so far hasn't harmed a duck physically...psychologically, I'm not so sure. Charlie enjoys working with me, and I enjoy working with him...frustrating when he won't do a "down" for me, but he's young, and I'm forgiving.
It first occurred after I had cooped the ducks on three nights. On the fourth evening I went into the pen with the larger number of ducks, cooped them with Charlie's help, then I went to the other pen with the four remaining ducks. I intended to let Charlie assist me since the ducks could get behind the bushes and under the ducktent, but I couldn't see the ducks.
The ducks has already gone into the crate and were quietly waiting for me to latch the door. I couldn't believe it! It was almost as if they were saying, "Enough! We'll go! Just keep that dog outta here!"
It wasn't a one time, chance event. For four days straight the ducks have gone into the crate when I began working with the ducks in the other pen. Last night they even found the crate where I put it under the ducktent to provide a wind break.
Frankly, I am astonished at the changes in the behavior of those ducks. Long ago I ran across a definition of learning as "a relatively permanent change in behavior." According to this definition, the ducks have clearly learned to go into the crate at night.
I am surprised and delighted. Ducks seem to be more intelligent and adaptable than I have been willing to recognize...at least some ducks. Wonder if I could teach them to sing and dance???
This is a quotation from a book by Henry published by
Henry Holt and Company, New York, an Owl Book, ISBN 0-8050-1966-9, originally copyrighted in 1928. The book describes a year of life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.
"The Outermost House" by Henry Bestonp.24-25:
" We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical
concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by
complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature
through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather
magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them
for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken
form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly
err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world
older and more complete than ours they move finished and
complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or
never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are
not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations,
caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow
prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth."
The views expressed on this web page are not necessarily the views of Georgia State University, Atlanta GA USA.
James D. Satterfield Canton GA USA jsatt@gsu.edu