Mary's story:
Mary flew into our back yard in Mill Creek ravine in mid-August 1999 and took up residence with Bubble the goose.
Mary could fly but was rather fat and had trouble gaining height. So it was strange that she chose to spend her nights on top of a very
high lamppost near our house. Getting there every evening was a difficult 3-stage process, which included balancing on the top gable of
our neighbour Noel's house. But she made it every night for months
Winter came and Mary disappeared for a while. But in December she turned up again, with frost-bitten feet and beak. She then became
an indoor duck. Free-range I.D.'s produce unbelievable volumes of crap so Mary was shifted into a large, disused bathtub, which she liked.
Twice a day she wandered around the house for an hour or so. She wore a size 3 Safeway no-name duck diaper.
Mary laid 0.8 eggs per day on average, sometimes directly into her diaper.
She enjoyed a warm and caring relationship with cats Peanut and Wolf and dog Sybil, a Doberman/Rottweiler cross.
Mary attracted a fair bit of attention, being the world's first diaper-wearing duck. So this site was set up as a public service for her
fans.
Update 2001: Unfortunately Mary flew away in the summer of 2000 to greener pastures.
I had a surprising number of inquiries about how to put a diaper on a duck (there's a real market out there!).
The trick is to buy disposable diapers (e.g. Safeway #3) and put them on the wrong way around: the sticky tabs go over
the duck's tail and the other end gets fastened over the neck and tucked under the wings using a short length of masking tape.
(A second piece of masking tape should be put on the inside to cover the sticky part of the first piece so it doesn't stick to the feathers).
Here's an article that appeared in the University of Alberta's Folio magazine, 18 February 2000. Mary is wearing her diaper in the photos with Tanya.
This site was first created 1 Feb 2000 and updated 2 May 2001 and 28 Dec 2024
Mary could fly but was rather fat and had trouble gaining height. So it was strange that she chose to spend her nights on top of a very high lamppost near our house. Getting there every evening was a difficult 3-stage process, which included balancing on the top gable of our neighbour Noel's house. But she made it every night for months
Winter came and Mary disappeared for a while. But in December she turned up again, with frost-bitten feet and beak. She then became an indoor duck. Free-range I.D.'s produce unbelievable volumes of crap so Mary was shifted into a large, disused bathtub, which she liked. Twice a day she wandered around the house for an hour or so. She wore a size 3 Safeway no-name duck diaper.
Mary laid 0.8 eggs per day on average, sometimes directly into her diaper.
She enjoyed a warm and caring relationship with cats Peanut and Wolf and dog Sybil, a Doberman/Rottweiler cross.
Mary attracted a fair bit of attention, being the world's first diaper-wearing duck. So this site was set up as a public service for her fans.
Update 2001: Unfortunately Mary flew away in the summer of 2000 to greener pastures.
I had a surprising number of inquiries about how to put a diaper on a duck (there's a real market out there!). The trick is to buy disposable diapers (e.g. Safeway #3) and put them on the wrong way around: the sticky tabs go over the duck's tail and the other end gets fastened over the neck and tucked under the wings using a short length of masking tape. (A second piece of masking tape should be put on the inside to cover the sticky part of the first piece so it doesn't stick to the feathers).
Here's an article that appeared in the University of Alberta's Folio magazine, 18 February 2000. Mary is wearing her diaper in the photos with Tanya.