- Jun 10, 2013
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So, I am writing this for informational purposes. We have been doing lots of research on what may have been attacking our ducks. Why? Well, we just lost one of our beautiful saxony drakes and one of our silver Appleyard ducks was injured.
We were shocked that our big boy (RIP Pinestone ) was not only killed but his injuries were a bit perplexing. He had a blood spot on each side of his neck/head area and his rear end had been eaten. I looked into his body cavity and his intestines were missing, but his liver was still there. His breasts were untouched! No feather mess or pieces of flesh or reminents of his intestines. Weird, right?
We then inspected the rest of the flock and found another duck with a bite on her rear end too. The bite was as if something had it's head sideways and took a bite under her tail feathers.
We immediately started to research and located many articles on predator identification. Those articles are precisely what prompted our story being shared with all of you.
We caught our predator when it came back for our beloved boy... Dun dun dun..
It was a opossum!!! What the heck? We were shocked, but thought our traumatic experience may help others identify their predator if they knew that opossums not only attack ducks, but that they can kill one as big as of saxony drake! Hope this helps someone out there!
We were shocked that our big boy (RIP Pinestone ) was not only killed but his injuries were a bit perplexing. He had a blood spot on each side of his neck/head area and his rear end had been eaten. I looked into his body cavity and his intestines were missing, but his liver was still there. His breasts were untouched! No feather mess or pieces of flesh or reminents of his intestines. Weird, right?
We then inspected the rest of the flock and found another duck with a bite on her rear end too. The bite was as if something had it's head sideways and took a bite under her tail feathers.
We immediately started to research and located many articles on predator identification. Those articles are precisely what prompted our story being shared with all of you.
We caught our predator when it came back for our beloved boy... Dun dun dun..
It was a opossum!!! What the heck? We were shocked, but thought our traumatic experience may help others identify their predator if they knew that opossums not only attack ducks, but that they can kill one as big as of saxony drake! Hope this helps someone out there!