Ducks as Pets
28 11 2006
A flash of my childhood struck me a little while ago when I was looking at this blog’s domain name. Nothing dramatic. But it was sweet enough to make me smile.
It was the memory of my late mother. The memory of her feeding the ducks that she bred as pets. A whole bunch of them; in the duck pen behind our house. From when they were baby ducks to when they were adult, quacking, ducks. Yes, they quack, quack and quack because none of them was Donald. Or Daisy.
But why ducks? We were not living in a village; Section 5 Petaling Jaya is NOT a village. I never asked my mother; so, I guess I’ll never know.
Ducks have many economic uses, being farmed for their meat, eggs, feathers and down feathers. They are also kept and bred by aviculturists and often displayed in zoos. All domestic ducks are descended from the wild Mallard Anas platyrhynchos, except Muscovy Ducks. Many domestic breeds have become much larger than their wild ancestor, with a “hull length” (from base of neck to base of tail) of 30 cm (12 inches) or more and routinely able to swallow an adult British Common Frog, Rana temporaria, whole.
In 2002, psychologist Richard Wiseman and colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire (UK) finished a year-long LaughLab experiment, concluding that, of the animals in the world, the duck is the type that attracts most humor and silliness; he said “If you’re going to tell a joke involving an animal, make it a duck.” The word “duck” may have become an inherently funny word in many languages because ducks are seen as a silly animal, and their odd appearance compared to other birds. Of the many ducks in fiction, many are silly cartoon characters.
u wanna know why ur mom kept duck as pet instead of…
dog- we muslims can’t keep dog as pet
cat- too furry so its unhealthy for u guys as u were growing up and suffering from asthma..(wild guess)
iguana - too expensive at that time
chicken- it won’t live long as u will slaughter it for dinner
ostrich- too fast and too big for ur compound
goose- too dangerous as it will peck u
fish- not interesting enuff
so i guess my assumptions will at least answer ur question……..”but why ducks?”