On May 10, we were given a BBWD at a local park. Some kids found the nest and thought the ducklings 'fell out of the tree', not realizing they nest on the ground. By the time we got there the kids had ridden off on their bikes leaving only one of the ducklings with a young girl. As we have ducks (runners) we convinced the girl to give us the duckling to care for it. It was only one or two days old, as it literally fit in my daughter's closed fist. We named it Pepper because it is so feisty, we call it she, but are not sure. Pepper liked to curl up in my daughter's closed hand for the first few days. The other ducks do not like Pepper much. We take Pepper out to forage with them daily, but the drakes try to peck at her (we have to keep a constant vigil). The female duck is a little more accepting, at least she does not peck at her, so Pepper follows her around. Pepper jumped out of the 12-inch high bin we set up for her at 2 days old, so we had to get a larger 24-inch high bin. That held her for about 2 and 1/2 weeks, but she managed to get out of that one too! BBWDs have AMAZING jumping ability. We set up the bin with shavings, a heat lamp and a stuffed duck that she snuggled with, under its wing, sooo cute! However, she much prefers to sleep on my daughter's neck beneath her hair, and perches on her shoulder as my daughter goes about her day (she will cook entire meals with Pepper perched on her shoulder, lol). She now follows my daughter around everywhere. BBWDs are not endangered, they sort of fall under migratory protection, but they actually don't migrate much, they tend to stay in one vicinity. In addition, their population is estimated to be between one and two million birds.
At first, we ground up duckling/chick starter feed (to make it more manageable for her tiny bill) to feed her. Now she can eat it without it being ground. She likes to perch on the rim of her water dish when she drinks. She forages with our ducks and will eat small pieces of lettuce, and other veggies we treat them with. She can now eat mealworms if we smash them into smaller pieces. She loves to bathe in our sink daily and has jumped in our duck pond a few of times (we only left her in a few minutes as we were worried about the other ducks and her waterproof oils). Pepper is very smart and lets us know exactly what she wants, she will nibble on our hand to let us know she is hungry, and will whistle shrilly at us if we leave her alone too long. She will 'step up' on our hand when she wants to be carried and will try to leap down when she wants to explore. In my research, I have found that BBWDs are odd ducks: they walk more upright then ducks and do not waddle, they nest like owls, mate like swans (for life), care for their young like geese and like to perch on fallen or leaning trees, unlike ducks. Plus, they do not quack, they whistle (quite shrilly in fact!) We are torn between hoping she will fly off to find her forever mate and hoping she will stay with us like Mouse did.
