Esme 2014-2016
It's funny: I know the duck for "feed me!" and for "the food is coming!" and for "where did you go?", but I don't know the duck for "goodbye".
Two days ago, Esme 'helped' me with the weeding, plonked next to me waiting for worms.
Yesterday, she laid an egg and, Mike reports, was her usual noisy, gobbling self when it was meal times.
This morning, though, she didn't want to leave the house, and she couldn't manage the steps up to the garden. When I carried her up them to see if breakfast was tempting, she was struggling to catch her breath. Later, after the other ducks had come back to the stableyard, I carried her back down so that she wouldn't be on her own, and she went and hid inside the bonfire, panting frantically and silently.
This was very similar to when she had a chest infection last autumn, but that took four or five days to develop, not just overnight.
It being Sunday, the vet doesn't open until 10am, but they booked us in for 10:45 and I borrowed Mrs Next Door's cat carrier. Fortunately, Esme had emerged from the bonfire by this point, but she was in a pretty bad way.
Unfortunately, she didn't make her appointment: by the time we got there, I no longer needed the vet's help to make a diagnosis. I very much doubt that it would have made any difference if it hadn't been Sunday and she'd been seen a couple of hours earlier.
As Mike said, it would have to be Esme, wouldn't it? she's always been my favourite, for all she's a bit runty.
This afternoon, we went to the garden centre and got that corkscrew hazel I'd been planning. It's got extra fertilizer in the bottom of the hole.
Magrat, Esme and Gytha 1, looking scrawny just after they arrived:
Agnes, Magrat, Esk and Esme, looking stylishly accessorised and much plumper, last month:
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Two days ago, Esme 'helped' me with the weeding, plonked next to me waiting for worms.
Yesterday, she laid an egg and, Mike reports, was her usual noisy, gobbling self when it was meal times.
This morning, though, she didn't want to leave the house, and she couldn't manage the steps up to the garden. When I carried her up them to see if breakfast was tempting, she was struggling to catch her breath. Later, after the other ducks had come back to the stableyard, I carried her back down so that she wouldn't be on her own, and she went and hid inside the bonfire, panting frantically and silently.
This was very similar to when she had a chest infection last autumn, but that took four or five days to develop, not just overnight.
It being Sunday, the vet doesn't open until 10am, but they booked us in for 10:45 and I borrowed Mrs Next Door's cat carrier. Fortunately, Esme had emerged from the bonfire by this point, but she was in a pretty bad way.
Unfortunately, she didn't make her appointment: by the time we got there, I no longer needed the vet's help to make a diagnosis. I very much doubt that it would have made any difference if it hadn't been Sunday and she'd been seen a couple of hours earlier.
As Mike said, it would have to be Esme, wouldn't it? she's always been my favourite, for all she's a bit runty.
This afternoon, we went to the garden centre and got that corkscrew hazel I'd been planning. It's got extra fertilizer in the bottom of the hole.
Magrat, Esme and Gytha 1, looking scrawny just after they arrived:
Agnes, Magrat, Esk and Esme, looking stylishly accessorised and much plumper, last month:
This entry was originally posted at http://flick.dreamwidth.org/1064601.html, where it has
comment(s). Add comments here or there, if you feel like it.