A couple months ago the gander bachelor group was running rampant killing defenseless ducks. But Pate kept them in place when he could -- he'd chase them here and there. But one in particular was his favorite target -- they fought nearly every day. One day Pate beat this one up so bad he lost a bunch of feathers at the scruff of his neck and was bleeding. So I separated them. This was about the same time the bachelor group went into the fattening pen. The underdog didn't go into the fattening pen, but was instead put into the female dormitory where he could recover. Someone has to be at the bottom of the heap. It's a bird's world out there.
Every day when I'd let them out, Pate would perform a domination ritual: he'd lower his head, charge the underdog (who would then run away), then raise his head as high as possible, flap his wings as wide as possible, and belt out a honk (you guessed it, as loud as possible), then hop into the kiddie pool for a bath.
Today there was the biggest fight I've ever seen. Pate and the underdog were going at it, biting each other in that favorite spot behind the neck, and flapping their wings at each other. (They have a knobby protrusion on the tips of their first joint that they use for fighting. I've been hit by them before. They are surprisingly strong, easily able to raise a bruise or two on me when they want to.) The fight went on for at least two minutes (they normally last a few seconds). Longtime readers will recall that Pate's sons are big like their mother, and his daughters are small like he is.
Today the son beat up his father. Size over experience won.
I saw an immediate change in the flock. After chasing Pate into the farthest corner of the yard, the son jumped into the favored kiddie pool, did a victory bath, jumped out, and for the sport of it, chased Pate around the yard again with the typical head lowering, wing flapping, and honking afterwards. His siblings gathered around him, vocalized quite a bit (gave him a high-five?), and generally followed him around like he walked on water.
This underdog was not really the underdog; he was in fact the challenger to the throne, the only one who had the guts to put up a fight with the top dog. And now he's the new boss.
Poor Pate. He is smaller than his sons, afterall, it was inevitable. But, luckily for Pate, his children have no names. You know what that means.
Speaking of which, three of the new Sheriff's siblings became pate last weekend. Their livers did, that is. It was delicious. Two carcasses went to co-workers' houses, and one stayed here to become confit.
In other news, the muscovy ducklings are coming along. They no longer have that uncoordinated walk that young teenagers have. Some are almost leaving the ground when they exercise their wings. Looks like there's an even 50/50 male to female ratio. It's very obvious with muscovies because the males are significantly bigger than the females. And just like teenagers, they eat quite a bit. I used to add food (25 lbs at a time) to the feeder about every other week. Now it runs out every 5 days.
The two geese I recently acquired from Jose in Hayward are doing well enough. "Fred" is a Pilgrim, which are not normally known for their great size, but Fred is quite large, bigger than Foie and Gras Embden even. He's the biggest bird in the yard, in fact. Oddly enough, he is the most complacent of them all, and nibbles grain out of my hand most daintily. The drama of the fighting doesn't phase him one bit. And his buddy? He turned out to be male, not female.
For future reference, instead of calling the no-names "food", I'll call them
redshirts .
Lastly, sorry about the Koop Kam not being accessible. I've torn it apart because that's what boys do. I'll make a link in an obvious location when it's back again.
