BaaHaus

Meet the I-90 Ducks

One morning in the early Spring of 2008, we got a phone call from a man in West Seattle. Could we take nine ducklings? I immediately assumed that this guy had ordered some ducklings (possibly to raise for meat), decided that they were too much trouble and now wanted to off-load them. Well, was I ever wrong!

Our hero had been driving home on I-90 after a long sales trip to Eastern Washington. Just outside North Bend, he happened to notice a big packing box by the side of the road. As he roared by it, he saw a little yellow head pop out of a hole in the box! Slamming on his brakes, and pulling over to the side of the road, he cautiously backed up toward the box. Inside were a dozen duckings, nine of whom had survived their collision with the roadbed.

The ducklings were all different colors, only about two days old. George surmised that someone must have picked them up east of the mountains, tossed the box in the back of a pickup truck and taken off. But the ducklings had a combined weight of maybe a quarter of a pound and so the box probably blew out of the truck bed.

George gathered up the peepers and took them home, not knowing what else to do, but he certainly was NOT going to leave them to their fate on the freeway. He stopped off for a heatlamp, cedar chips, a big shallow plastic tub, duck food and other necessities, and set the ducklings up in resplendent luxury in his garage. As a few days passed, George fell in love with the ducklings but also realized that a travelling man was probably not the best stepfather for this little brood. And besides, they were growing like crazy. After searching the web, he gave us a call and we relocated them to BaaHaus. Now they can cavort, splash and waddle in a safe permanent home with us.

We thank George from the bottoms of our ducky hearts and we thank all the other people who take the time to help an animal in distress.

Meet the Inkspots

In January 2010, BaaHaus received an email from Seattle Animal Shelter (SAS), asking if we could take four Muskovy ducks. Muskovy ducks are quite distinctive; they look like a cross between a turkey and a goose. They wag their tails, speak in whispers rather than quacks, and are native to Mexico, Central and South America. The males are quite large and muscular. Consequently, they have been domesticated and raised as a meat source. But Muskovies don't like being at the center of the menu, and so many have brushed up on their flying, escaped back into what is left of Nature, and successfully naturalized in a few areas, including the Puget Sound region.

But it turns out that they are also used for another purpose. The four little guys at SAS were confiscated in a Seattle area cockfighting raid. Yes, this disgusting activity (it certainly cannot be characterized as a sport) can be found all over Washington State. Law enforcement works hard to close down these operations, not really so much out of a concern for animal cruelty but because of the illegal gambling, drug and alcohol action that is almost always a part of the cockfighting culture.

You are thinking, "Fighting DUCKS? Huh!?" That was our reaction, too. Turns out that the young ducks, with their blunt bills and soft, vulnerable webbed feet, are perfect for practice "fights" with the cocks. They are used as bait to get the blood lust up. The cocks can't possibly get hurt by the defenseless ducks and, who knows, maybe the soon-to-be very dead ducks end up as snacks for the fight audiences.

Needless to say, our four ducks, named after the famed vocal group The Inkspots (Deek, Hoppy, Bill and Charlie) are singing/whispering a much happier tune at BaaHaus, safe from one of the most despicable forms of human entertainment.

Meet Barbara

Barbara was surrendered to BaaHaus in January 2005 because her owners were unable to provide the intensive medical attention she needed for severe injuries sustained in what was thought to be a dog attack. We washed, medicated and injected Barbara for several weeks and we are very hopeful that she will fully recover from this extensive, badly infected wound.

Barbara is a wonderful, people-oriented sheep who loves company. She makes up for her short stature with towering courage and her just darned cute personality.

2010 is Barbara's fifth year at BaaHaus. She is probably the most popular resident at BaaHaus because of her gentle and patient demeanor. Barbara has chosen not to live with other sheep. Instead, she enjoys a straw filled suite just inside the big stable, where she can supervise food prep for the llamas, potbelly pigs, the two big hogs and the other sheep. She is free to roam about the sanctuary and, on occasion, likes nothing better to sit with you on a warm summer night gazing up at the stars. She is a much needed reminder of how closely related we all are.

Meet Loretta

Loretta's story is all too common: auctioned off for a few dollars at a slaughterhouse, to people intending to butcher and roast them, countless farm animals in extraordinarily poor condition suffer and die so that humans may feast. Loretta and another elderly sheep were purchased for this purpose just before Easter 2009. Both were in very poor condition--grossly malnourished to the point of starvation, covered with a large external parasite called Keds (Hippoboscidae) or Louse Flies, filled with internal parasites, and losing fleece in large swatches. However, Loretta still had her wits about her; she and her companion fled the North Seattle location where they were supposed to be slaughtered and eventually got picked up by the North Precinct Seattle police. Temporarily incarcerated in a jail cell (the custodial crew was not happy the next morning), the two sheep were taken to Seattle Animal Shelter where veterinary care was begun.

BaaHaus was asked to take the sheep and continue veterinary care and rehabiliation. Sadly, we were unable to save the second sheep. We see this happen on occasion: an animal makes an extraordinary effort to hold herself together through terrible circumstances--anyone who has visited a slaughterhouse knows how frightening the environment is--and finally finds a safe home, but it is just too late; after two weeks, she died peacefully with her friend Loretta watching over her.

Once we got Loretta cleaned up and de-bugged, and gently encouraged her rumin to begin functioning normally, she turned out to be a very high spirited younger sheep who still had enough energy to recover from her ordeal. She is now rompin' and stompin' in the upper pasture with Dickenson, a Black Welsh Mountain Sheep. You would never know she had been so close to death just months earlier.