Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. :~D
I love all my animals without reservation, but I know their lives are shorter than mine. I don't want to outlive them, I'd worry about them then.
On the chicken thing, I know I've mentioned that while chickens don't do much for me, I think ducks would be fun. Well our feed store has a sign up that because of fear of bird flu, they aren't selling any chicks or ducks in the store this year, you have to get them direct from the supplier. Is this happening down there too?
Since I'm not in the market to by fowls, I don't know. My feed store has never sold chickens/ducks.
Ducks do make wonderful pets. My kids had some when they were growing up. The funny thing is when you only have 1 it really really becomes a pet. Two times we got pairs of ducks, and both times we lost one before they grew up. While there were two, they always ran away from us and were generally hard to catch. Once one died the remaining one LOVED us. They came when you called. One of them even got to where he followed the kids out to the end of the driveway when they went to catch the school bus, pecked around while they waited then came waddling back up the drive after they got on the bus. It was hilarious.
But when he was about 3, he got very aggressive towards Jenny. He thought her foot was his mate. He tried it with all of us, but the rest of us kicked the crap out of him and he stopped, but she couldn't/wouldn't do that. It got really bad, he'd bite her shins and leave marks. We had a neighbor who had a pond full of female ducks. We gave him to them and he was happy:). But he did live on their front porch the first summer instead of in the duck house. It took him a while to learn he was a duck:)
I have children who would probably take any horse I left, especially if they knew mom LOVED it:). And I hate to admit it, it makes me vulnerable:), but I probably love all my animals more then I act like:). I'm always just trying to convince myself I don't:)
Becky