Ducks! Quack Quack!

I'm thinking of getting some pet ducks.

Anyone had any experience with keeping them as pets?

Cheers

MO

 

No, but I can give you some good recipes

-- Ian

 

I'm vegie

Anything with just the eggs?

 

There's a simple answer you're looking for.

Live Ducks! - for all your pet duck needs, and also strangely hypnotic on the webcam

 

They don't move much do they!

 

Mo - not to get into an argument, but can you explain how eating a duck's unborn "foetus" is any less bad than eating a live duck?

I can never understand how people can say they're veggie and then eat chicken, eggs, etc. Dairy produce I can understand, but my sister in law claims to be veggie and eats fish and chicken? Like I say, not to have a dig, but enlighten me as I've always been curious about it...

I've no idea about keeping ducks as pets btw (but it's a cool idea!). Can you put one in a canal tunnel and tell me if it's quack (the duck, not the tunnel!) echoes? Lhatkins claims that he heard the "duck's quack doesn't echo" thing is a myth, so I'm curious about that too

 

If you want to understand, look at the UK veg soc . Don't assume that morals are the only grounds, and anyway to class an egg as poultry is stretching things. FYI this particular society draws the line in this grey area by recommending free-range, but no-one is convinced by the argument that, because grey exists, therefore white is no different to black.

Someone who regularly eats fish and chicken is not a veggie. People can be mistaken as to what they are! Anyway, it's just a matter of definition, how we choose to use words.

 

dom,

http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/duckecho.htm

also a friend of mine is a 'veggie' who eats fish and chicken... when called on this he said it's ok because fish and chicken are ugly - so there you have it.
cheers


julian

 

You clearly didn't catch the white duck on one of its rampages round the pond, jumping in and out of shot every frame

 

Dom and Julian - you'll have to break it gently to them, but your sister and your friend respectively are not vegetarians - even if they insist they are, they are not. Any more than I would be Napoleon even if I insisted I were.

PS. The eggs we eat are not normally fertilised, so strictly speaking they aren't foetuses - that's the loophole I think

PPS. My other half had a friend who had a duck for a pet. It made an excellent pet apparently - was trained to use a litter and came in and out of the house through a cat flap - didn't leave fluff all over, didn't dig its claws in and laid eggs to boot. Three reasons why a duck is a better pet than a cat.

 

QUACK!!!!!

We've got a dog, so will need to see how she'd get on. Have read quite a few people saying they have ducks with other pets and they get on fine. Still, would only take a moment of the old doggy predator insticts kicking in.

I'm not sure about "potty training". They don't have the right equipment apparantly. Just go when they gots to go!

As for Vegie.

I don't eat meat. I do eat eggs and milk, cheese etc...

I try to avoid gelatine and such.

I don't eat sea food - fish, crab, etc...

I don't really care what deinition or whatever it fits into. It's not about meeting criteria to carry the badge. That's what *I* choose to eat and not eat.

People go vegie for different reasons. For me it's a combination of not believing it's really necessary to kill animals for food. I've got by quite happily for about 9 years or so now.

But aswell as the animal itself, it's about ME. I find the idea of putting a dead animal in my mouth a little off putting now. Some people say they still get tempted or such. But after a while even the smell gets a bit unpleasent (for me at least). Sometimes something might smell ok, but it's a lump of dead animal. I'd rather not.

People say "well, we're top of the food chain etc..". Well, if I HAD to eat an animal to survive, I would! If I was stranded on a desert Island I'd eat any other people stranded too If I had too But, like I said, there's plenty of alternatives out there.

So it's about the cruelty, health, and about me.

I think there's a bit of suede on my trainers btw.

 

I've been a non-meater for about the last 20 years.

I very occasionally eat a little bit of fish but avoid farmed fish and the more endangered stocks.

I'd find it a bit much weeding out anything with animal fat in it but as I enjoy cooking and don't buy many prepared foodstuffs its not too much of an issue.

All I can say is I play a fair amount of badminton at a reasonably high level, I've got more energy than many kids half my age and I'm fitter than most of my contemporaries. Works for me.

But I'm with MO! It's my personal decision and got nothing to with anyone else. Personally I can't stand evangelistic zealots (of any persuasion) least of all vegetarians. Often describing myself as vegetarian makes things much simpler for all concerned !!

 

I didn't mean it to sound like I was having a go or anything re the veggie thing, just curious... *I've* suspected that by classic definition, my sister in law wasn't one either, so glad to know the answer

BTW - good point re the eggs...

I love meat, but only certain types. However, I hate fiddling with proper raw meat (steak etc) - it feels DISGUSTING. Walking past a butchers during stock loading makes me feel eeuegh as well...

The problem is I like the taste of meat too much to stop... (And yeah, I could kill an animal to survive, if I had to).

I don't eat fish either; for one thing, it smells totally MINGING, it's stringy, looks gross before cooking, and when I was 6, I was mentally scarred for life, after watching my mum cook a crab (they have to be boiled alive!) - just seeing the poor thing trying to clamber out the pot was horrid. Dad turned to her before it went in the pot and said "YOU'RE cooking it - I can't watch this!". Can clearly remember that one :yikes:

 

I cant understand how anyone who calls themself a vegetarian can then go on to admit they eat fish and keep a straight face

If you eat fish, you are NOT a vegetarian, end of story, and you may as well just eat other meat. Fish are animals just like any other.

And for the record, I like nothing better than a nice big plate of fish and chips with vinegar and salt, or to sink my teeth into a nice juicy steak.

 

I hate fish - well, I don't like the taste of them anyway - I like watching live ones swim around! (but don't mind chips!). Chips and gravy HAS to be the best fast food there is! Yum yum...

I like prawns (in prawn cocktail) and scampi though, so figure that one out! I can't...

 

Agreed

I agree with you to adopt the definition that one is not a 'vegetarian' in this case, but if one has adapted one's diet for perceived health reasons (not for morals), it is quite a defensible position to eat a mostly plant-diet supplemented occasionally by some fish. There is no straighforward word for this, perhaps why such people have made things confusing for us purists and for dictionary-obsessives by co-opting the word. Well there is a word, but it's not very popular: 'pesco-vegetarian', analogous with lacto- and ovo-vegetarian.

Have a bit of sympathy - to explain in a restaurant that one is conscious of diet for health reasons and thus one is mostly a vegetarian but can eat a little fish, is easier than explaining 'I live on a stone-age diet' or 'I'm pesco-lacto-ovo-vegetarian - what have you got?'

 

Thats fair enough, but I was referring to one or two people that I have personally spoke to in the past, and it pissed me off. Basically, they said that they were vegetarians, and when I asked why they said because they did not agree with the cruelty to animals. However, they did go on to say they eat fish. I asked what the difference was, and one answer I got was that they "they are not intelligent enough to understand the concept of cruelty" and the other person simply said "well its only a fish". It is that type of response that pisses me off, to say that the animal (in this case, a fish) does not suffer when it is being caught, generally suffocating to death. It reeks of hypocrisy.

But the reason you gave is fair enough. I can accept that. I could accept that people may simply not like other meat, but like fish, but I cannot accept people calling themselves veggies - they arent! They should not have to explain anything, if they do not want meat, but want fish, then they just have to say that, and they dont have to explain why. And those who claim that the fish dont suffer or have no concept of suffering is just talking utter bull.

As you might be able to tell though, I like fish (watching live ones and eating)

 

I didn't get where I am today by not eating fish.

 

Ironic that Jeremy Bentham, one of the prime political theorists on utilitarianism, the doctrine that any means are justified if the ends result in greater happiness (a type of consequentialism) also said "The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?"

What's the link to the thread? Well, "If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck. A fox can claim to be a duck all day long. But it's still a fox."

 

We used to live on a smallholding in the middle of nowhere, not much fun, but there were wild ducks around. In the summer we used to feed the dog outside, so as the food wouldn't attract flies etc. in... anyway, one day, look out of the window and the dog is stood there looking at its dinner with a puzzled expression and the duck is quite calmly eating it... this happened occasionally for a couple of months, until one day the dog actually had the sense to growl at it. It finally flew off pretty sharpish! I have a photo somewhere...