Next time, if you're alone, try both a towel and a bucket big enough. Sit on a chair, bucket add toweled duck between your feet, duck facing you. Your off-hand should be palm-up, place index and middle fingers crook fashion on either side of the duck's head. Use your working hand to split the beak, then your off-hand thumb goes between to hold it open. Working hand pills the duck.
Even if you're not alone, toweled duck (sounds like some weird meal) in a bucket makes things a lot easier.
–N, someone whose dad once owned a duck farm (guess who did most of the work).
That was my guess for the way to do it (with practice and a towel!), and I suspect I could right now when she's feeling under the weather. Not sure how well I'd do when she's back to normal but still needs to finish the course, though!
Is there perhaps a chance of you setting up a hospital coop? It's a walk-in effort, sort of like an aviary, and really handy when fowls need to be medicated– smaller space = easier to catch. It's a handy space to have for quarantine purposes (though I fervently wish you have no need to quarantine anything at all).
Also, if you cut a small hole in the center of an old towel, you've got something like a duck/goose/chook/turkey poncho. Slip the hole over their head, then sort of fold and wrap the rest of the towel around them. I found that was a time-saver and therefore a stress-reliever, cos the fowls spent less time being 'toweled-up'.
That pretty much describes the space that they sleep in anyway: it's a section of a stable, divided off with half-height wooden walls and wire mesh up to the ceiling to keep out the carnivores!
Thanks for the suggestions, it's good to know that my vague idea for how to do it does work, in case I have to do it on my own one evening. (I'm just glad that the course will be finished before we have a pet sitter for the weekend: I wouldn't like to give her the job if she's never done it before!)
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Next time, if you're alone, try both a towel and a bucket big enough. Sit on a chair, bucket add toweled duck between your feet, duck facing you. Your off-hand should be palm-up, place index and middle fingers crook fashion on either side of the duck's head. Use your working hand to split the beak, then your off-hand thumb goes between to hold it open. Working hand pills the duck.
Even if you're not alone, toweled duck (sounds like some weird meal) in a bucket makes things a lot easier.
–N, someone whose dad once owned a duck farm (guess who did most of the work).
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Also, if you cut a small hole in the center of an old towel, you've got something like a duck/goose/chook/turkey poncho. Slip the hole over their head, then sort of fold and wrap the rest of the towel around them. I found that was a time-saver and therefore a stress-reliever, cos the fowls spent less time being 'toweled-up'.
Anyway, good luck!
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Thanks for the suggestions, it's good to know that my vague idea for how to do it does work, in case I have to do it on my own one evening. (I'm just glad that the course will be finished before we have a pet sitter for the weekend: I wouldn't like to give her the job if she's never done it before!)