So sad

This morning when I got to work, one of our little ducklings was dead in the cage :( The other two looked a bit under the weather as well, along with one of the chickens. I removed the dead duckling, cleaned out the pen, changed the food and water and set about watching. Within an hour one of the other ducklings started falling over and having seizures and then died suddenly. He had been eating and drinking fine one moment and the next he was gone. Luckily my students were at Specials, so they did not witness it. I set up a little quarantine box for the sick chicken and duckling, convinced that both would be dead within the hour as well since they were falling over and lethargic too. Well, they lasted all day, and the chicken actually started to perk up a bit. I thought maybe we were out of the woods, and decided to bring them home to watch them over night. On the drive home the duckling started having seizures and died in the box on my daughter's lap :( The chick seems like it's doing alright though. I had even stopped at our vet to see if they could figure out what was wrong with duckling, but they do not treat ducks and didn't know of any other vet in town who did. I have combed the internet, but don't have a definitive answer as to what went wrong. Now I am debating as to whether I should run to the Feed Store to get some replacement ducklings or try to explain to my kiddos about the ducklings dying. At this point they don't know as I kept the quarantine box covered so they thought all 3 ducklings were in there. Such a sad, sad day.


As if that wasn't enough, as my kiddos were leaving out our back door today they almost stepped on this little guy:

He had apparently fallen out of his next which is up in the wall by the roof.

At first I just left him alone, thinking he might fly away on his own, but an hour later he was still sitting there and there were no bushes or anything around for him to hide in from predators. Since so many of the kids saw him as they left school I worried about them coming back and messing with him too. I ended up getting a ladder and returning him to the nest, but I worry that he might fall out again, although when I got him up there he disappeared deep into the wall.



Anyways, rather horrible day all around, I just want to curl up in bed and pretend it never happened. Do you think I should go get the new ducklings or do I tell my kiddos that they all died?