The Chronicles of Donna the Duck:
Chapter 2: OUR FIRST FEW DAYS
We put Donna down on the kitchen floor and put down a dish of the pellets, some bread and milk and a dish of water. These she ignored and if I ventured near to her she panicked and rushed around the kitchen flapping her 'flaps', well by no stretch of imagination could you call those two small appendages of skin about the size of my big toe, wings. So we sat still and she made her way to the cardboard box and settled down. No one could call her pretty, she was a lovely yellow and very fluffy but ungainly, beak and feet looking out of proportion, I suppose she was between the two beautiful stages of gorgeous duckling and beautiful grown duck. We decided to leave her in peace for a while to let her settle but could not resist regular visits. By early evening I was getting worried, she had not eaten all day or even drunk and I doubted she would survive long without sustenance. So we decided to fill the bath with several inches of warm water and we introduced her to it. If a duck can look astonished, she did, her first dip, then suddenly she dipped her head and 
drank, we both sighed with relief. At first she carefully kept one foot on the side of the bath but slowly she ventured out and away from the side, and was swimming. Mel fetched a slice of bread and threw bits into the water. She immediately ate them and looked for more and that was the last time we ever had to worry about her not eating. This was her first contact with a large amount of water and she was soon throwing all over herself and us and having a wonderful splashy time. However she still did not like us too near to her,if I moved too close she scurried away to the far end of the bath. After about a quarter of an hour I decided my baby had had long enough and I fetched a towel, chased her around the bath until I managed to get hold of her and lifted her out and gave her a good toweling, although above water level her fluff seemed to throw off the water, underneath she was pretty water logged.
We had now decided she would have to stay indoors until the weather improved. We were having a very cold snap for the beginning of May.So we set up her box with shavings and reinstalled her when she was dry. Every time Donna made a mess, which seemed to be 2 minutes after eating or drinking, I would say that she had left me a message. This seemed a polite way of putting it as the messages were spread liberally around the kitchen as she explored her domain. Much later in the year we had some relatives from Australia visit and their term for this function was 'a squirt'. This I thought was an extremely accurate way of describing it as that's what ducks do, squirt it out like jet propulsion. So I don't take it very seriously when I see TV programmes featuring pet ducks walking around homes with immaculate carpets, and going to bed in little cots. We kept Donna in the kitchen for 10 days and that is about as long as I could take it. Every morning and evening it was a full scale floor washing job, but we noticed she never ventured beyond the kitchen onto carpeted areas when a door was left open, she seemed to accept the kitchen as her area. She grew so quickly in those 10 days, I am sure she doubled in size and lots of spiky quills started to push through the fluff. Every evening we gave her her bath time which she seemed to enjoy more and more. I let her have deeper water and she grew more confident swimming and splashing about and she grew quite used to the flashing of the camera as her photographic career began. After every bath I would wrap her in her towel and sit with her on my knee while she dried and we would watch Coronation Street, she didn't seem to think a great deal of this as she would drop off to sleep, obviously the Duckworths did attract her attention.......My treatment of her this way was really to get her to be used to me and completely hand tame so she would always come to me. She was still panicking and running all over the kitchen when we wanted to pick her up, so it needed working on. She did not seem much bothered by the dogs, she would move slowly out of their way, and they took little interest in her.
We had called at our daughter's home on the way home from collecting Donna, so she was well acquainted with our new pet. We had not told our son so I was looking forward to his reaction when he called around. As he strode into the kitchen I watched his face. It was a study but all he said was "Mother, why have you got a duckling walking around your kitchen?" I told him and all he said was "Oh I see", I suppose he though Mum was getting to a funny age.
Casual callers looked a bit askance at the sight of a duckling waddling around and I had the distinct impression that one or two thought I was rather odd. Most callers, however, were fascinated and their calls often took longer than anticipated.
After the 10 days, the weather improved dramatically. Spring came all at once and we decided it was time to move Donna out into her other world.