The Chronicles of Donna the Duck:
Chapter 3: THE MOVE OUTSIDE
We had an idea how we were going to accommodate her outside but we had yet to try it out. We had a roll of 18 inch plastic covered wire and we 
made a circle of this and put it on the lawn. Her box was put inside and she was introduced into it. She was not impressed, she just lay there and sulked. How do you know if a duck is sulking, well you just do. She did not care for this grass stuff and she kept putting her head through the netting in a effort to push through a 2 inch square. We were not too worried as this was a temporary arrangement while we upgraded the old chicken house. This chicken house was an old 3' by 4' little wooden building on stilts with sliding doors and a glass window. We had had this for years and in its time had housed chickens, the children's pet rabbit, a tortoise and it looked as though it was going to come in useful again. After cleaning it out and attaching a wire run to it, we installed Donna and her box. Again, she was not impressed. She just lay in the grass run and sulked again. I told myself she would get used to it , but she was giving us a pretty determined sulk. Every evening I would catch her up and lock her into the secure area and next morning I would let her out again. She was eating and drinking okay but other wise she was not going to enjoy it. When we were home we would let her out and she would be happy enough pottering around the garden and she would usually end up back in the kitchen. Obviously the kitchen was still home to her, that chicken house was not.
I was beginning to feel depressed by the life we were giving Donna, I wanted her to be happy, to have more freedom yet be safe from foreign dogs and foxes that could attack from the adjacent fields. Another factor was the chicken house was not a thing of beauty and I was not too keen of the sight of it stuck on the lawn. It was not an elegant sight. The alternative available was a large dog kennel in a wire compound which was left from the days when we housed an Alsatian used for security work. It was a large kennel with two separate compartments and the wire surrounding this was 6ft high and the floor was neatly slabbed. The land to one side was a gently sloping bank under a sycamore tree and an ash tree and lots of bushes. I decided that if we fenced in this area and made 
a break in the wire, Donna could have a warm secure home, a wired in slabbed area and best of all a grassy bank with trees and bushes to provide shade in the summer. This we duly did and moved her into her new home.
We did comment on the fact that we had spent such a small amount on acquiring our duck and then spent over £30 on wire and staples to accommodate her, but we put it down to the cost of solving the problems and shrugged it off. Little did we know it was not the end of the expenditure, much more was to come.
It was a few days before Donna found her way down onto her grassy bank. I had to chase her down once or twice before she got the idea. After that she soon accepted it as home and no longer sulked. As soon as I got home in the evenings I would open her gate and call here and she would waddle about into the garden. Later, as it got dark she would waddle back into her kennel and I would lock her up for the night. It was good to know she was safe. Weekends she would spend most of her time out in the garden but when we were at work, she would seem quite happy in her domain. When loose I was very surprised she never showed any desire to wander further that the area we had allowed her. Our garden was not secure, there was a gate at the front and the hedges around our perimeter had gaps a determined duck could get through, but she never 
tried. She liked to be where she could see us. The finishing touch to her grassy bank was an upturned dustbin lid, let into the ground and filled with water. Every morning we would fill it and she would spend time sitting and splashing away in it. She really enjoyed herself in that dustbin lid, under the sycamore tree. So now I felt she was happy, enjoying a certain amount of freedom, security and her grassy bank. Now we could relax and enjoy her.
