Tiny dumped duckling

Yesterday, I got a call about a "gosling" that had hatched at the lake that had spent the night in the freezing cold rain and hail the night before next to his dead friend's body.  I knew that none of the geese were tending a nest or even breeding, so I went over to take a look and found this guy:

When I first saw him, I thought he was a Pekin, but he had a weird shape, thick legs, and a weird shaped head that was triangular like a goose.  He was also found hanging out with the geese and the worker who found him was pretty certain he was a gosling.  I took him over in a crate to the geese and though several were curious about him, none seemed to claim him, so I know he wasn't one of their babies.  He was also the wrong color, all yellow.  There are only three all white geese there and two are male and one is a female bonded to a gray male in which both breeds breed gray and yellow goslings.  So, I knew he had been dumped there.

Before I left to go look at him, I sent an email to several people with my cell phone number attached so that they could call me while I still had them.  There's pretty much a no tolerance policy with animals at the apartment where I live, so I couldn't take him home.  I went to a couple of feeds stores and they couldn't provide a heat lamp.  Consider that he was already hypothermic, I didn't want to leave him anywhere that wasn't warm, so I decided to take him to the local wildlife center to see if they can take him.

Well, on the way there, I got a call for someone who would take him in case the wildlife center couldn't (and they couldn't.  The next step was to bring him to the animal shelter).  So, I brought him to her house. She already has several chickens, ducks and a couple of geese and wanted to get some more.   So, she took in the little guy and kept him warm.

It turned out he wasn't a gosling at all, but a jumbo Pekin duckling, probably about one to two weeks old.  He's just old enough where he would begin to be weaned off a heat lamp, but still way too young to be out in under 40 degree wet weather.  So, now he has a home and is going to be one spoiled ducky from what I could see of his new owner's other animals.

Too bad about his friend, though.  If I had seen them before the storm, I could have saved both.

In other news, Oreo was seen trying to hang out with the 4 "babies", which are actually a group of four Pekin drakes that were dropped off last September.  They are actually not babies, but I call them that.  Oreo still misses his friend and even though he follows Cinnamon around, I think he still identifies himself with Pekins (even though he's a Swedish duck).