Owners take to caring for disabled pets
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
Purps and Hopeyduck are two Butler County waterfowl who fit two-thirds of that definition, but are still, indeed, ducks, despite not being able to walk.
Purps is a disabled duck who resides in Donegal Township with his owners, Haleigh Neff and Nick Coco. When he was a duckling, Purps’ legs began to develop outward in the wrong way, rendering him unable to walk.
Despite his lack of ground mobility, the 1-year-old duck lives a charmed life, essentially being Neff’s shadow.
“I carry him around, I take him to work with me, on vacation,” Neff said. “The most common question I get is, ‘Is that a real duck?’”
Hopeyduck is also a 1-year-old disabled duck who belongs to Melissa Blaine, of Connoquenessing Township.
Hopeyduck’s story is similar to Purps’, in that her leg bones also began to grow in the wrong direction as a duckling. Nevertheless, Blaine said he is a happy mallard duck who is “a spoiled girl.”
“Baby ducks will imprint on something, so she thinks I’m her mama,” Blaine said. “She likes watermelon, eggs — she gets special treatment.”
Both duck parents got their pets at Tractor Supply Co., and Neff and Blaine picked up entire flocks along with their disabled stars.
Coco said ducks can be a handful — their outside enclosures need a lot of cleaning — but they make him happy.
“If you had a bad day, you can come out here, sit and watch them and they just bring joy to your day,” he said. “The good is they bring happiness, the bad is that they are messy.”
While Neff and Blaine keep their disabled ducks with them at almost all times, the rest of the flock live outside in pens.
Neff said she had always wanted to own ducks, and bought them as soon as she was able to. She said she read up on how to take care of them before buying a flock, but she has learned a lot just from owning them.
Some of the caretaking methods she learned from research.
“They eat duck pellets, vegetables, and grass and peas,” Neff said. “They have an 8- to 12-year life expectancy.”
Other duck information she and Coco found out by living with ducks in their yard.
“They really take care of themselves, they find their own food,” Coco said. “They are kind of like people, they have their cliques and personalities.”
Blaine also said she learned a lot about ducks over the past year.
“They molt up to twice a year, and they can’t fly for three weeks after molting,” she said. “When they ingest food, they get it out within 45 minutes.”
The duck owners were also surprised by some of the waterfowl’s behavior. Neff said ducks have great eyesight, females can lay eggs once a day and that males bring a violent streak to mating season. Blaine also said a common misconception is the ducks’ quack, which is only performed by females, not males.
Coco said he and Neff spend about $250 a month on food, and Blaine said she spends about the same amount. A 50-pound bag of duck food lasts about two weeks, by Blaine’s estimate.
Blaine also said tending to the ducks takes about 45 minutes to an hour per day, which includes bringing food to the pen and cleaning the ducks’ habitat and their water. Caring for their disabled ducks is also a big responsibility that takes constant supervision, but the rewards are many.
“It can be a little much but it’s worth it,” Coco said.
Blaine said she named her duck “Hopeyduck” because she wants her to be a symbol of hope for human beings with disabilities.
A former music therapist, Blaine wrote Hopeyduck a theme song, made her a Facebook page and is offering virtual meeting sessions for people who want to learn more about ducks.
“My hope is that we can connect with people who have disabilities and bring a little joy to their day,” Blaine said.
Neff said Purps has become as much of a pet as any dog or cat.
She and Coco normally place him on a blanket in their home that carries his food and water dish so they can easily transport him around the house. At night, they drag the blanket into the bedroom to make sure Purps gets a goodnight message.
“It’s like he says goodnight when we turn the light off,” Neff said.
Although neither Hopeyduck or Purps can walk, they can swim, which Neff and Blaine said is one of their respective duck’s favorite activities. Neff said the look on people’s faces when they realize Purps is a pet is one of her favorite reactions.
“We’ll take him to Moraine and put him in the water while kayaking,” Neff said. “Then someone will see us pick him up and be so surprised.”
