Ham on the lam: This duck named after dinner won’t stop wandering off | 24CA News

A trendy fowl with an insatiable wanderlust has change into an area sensation within the British city of Chorley.

Ham the duck has a behavior of breaking free from his enclosure and having misadventures throughout city, his proprietor Charlotte Taylor-Dugdal informed As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

This, even if she secures him away in his pen each night.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard of Houdini over in Canada,” she mentioned, referring to the well-known American escape artist. “Well, we call him Hamdini. How he gets out, we will never know. But he just manages.”

The story of Ham and Pea

Taylor-Dugdal says she adopted Ham, alongside along with his sister, from a farm in 2018.

She was there to choose up some rabbits, which she breeds, when she fell head over heels for the pair of Indian runner ducklings. 

The farm’s proprietor informed her the child birds may at some point find yourself on somebody’s plate, so Taylor-Dugdal determined to spare them that grisly destiny and make them pets as an alternative.

“She was having me on. It was a joke,” Taylor-Dugdal mentioned. “She just knew that I’d end up taking these ducks on.”

At first, Taylor-Dugdal says she was going to call the pair Cat and Dog. But as an alternative, she determined to name them Ham and Pea, impressed by her dinner plans that night time. 

This led to some confusion that night, she mentioned, when she knowledgeable her youngsters she was making ham and pea soup, and subsequently needed to clarify that she wasn’t referring to their new feathered mates. 

For the primary couple years of his life, Ham was content material to be a homebody along with his sister, Taylor-Dugdal mentioned. But one thing modified when Pea died in December of 2021. That’s when he began making his nice escapes.

“We think he was looking for Pea originally,” she mentioned. “And then he started to get the attention of the locals.”

And there’s nothing Ham loves greater than consideration — besides, maybe, for Rice Krispies.

“It’s his favourite treat. And there’s nothing wrong with a treat, every now and then, is there?” Taylor-Dugdal mentioned.

Friend of kids, enemy of cats 

Ham has change into one thing of an everyday within the neighbourhood. He’s befriends the native youngsters, and has made a sport of chasing the neighbourhood cats. 

He’ll waddle straight into folks’s homes in the event that they open the door for him, and charms onlookers along with his assortment of jaunty scarves, hand-knit for him by Taylor-Dugdal’s mom. 

He would not wander too far, however there’s a lot to stand up to within the neighbourhood, which features a pharmacy, a nursery and a pub.

“He’s trying to get into the nursery because he loves the children. He tried to get in the [pharmacy] when people have gone in for prescriptions,” Taylor-Dugdal mentioned. “And he’s tried to get into the pub for an ice cold pint, I think. He’s naughty.”

Despite his galavanting, he is hardly ever lacking for lengthy, she mentioned.

Often, he returns on his personal. Other instances, she’ll crack open her window and shout “Ham!” till the little critter quacks again.

If all else fails, she says a Facebook submit will often result in his secure return.

“I think … he just quite enjoys being social,” she mentioned. “Obviously he spends a lot of time with us, but sometimes you like to see your friends as well as your family, don’t you? So I think that’s what he’s doing.”

She’s thought of placing up a digicam to see how he will get free, or maybe attaching a tracker to him. But she’s hesitant to place a whole cease to his hijinks.

“He [once] stayed in for about a week and a half, and honestly, he was so miserable,” she mentioned. “Then when he finally escaped, he came back happy as anything.”

Not to say, the waterfowl’s wanderings have him considerably well-known. He has his personal TikTok account, and he is not too long ago travelled all the way in which to London to make his first TV news look.

“He loved all the attention, all the cuddles. And they brought him a box of Rice Krispies,” she mentioned. “He’s quite the celebrity down there.”