Sibu Tales : Kon or Yah Koo This is for Duck Feed

When we lived in Pulau Kerto, my mother and Cousin Yew Ping reared a lot of ducks. Both of them were very fond of feeding the animals well and both really knew how to call the birds home for the evening meal especailly Cousin Yew Ping.

copra waste

Meal meant that cooked rice was mixed with rice bran and copra waste. Both would bulk up the feed but there was a certain smell in the food that some people may find offensive.

My mother was special carefull too about duck feed, because she believed that her ducks must also have green vegetables in the feed. So she would chop green vegetables like kangkong (which she got from the river banks) and any vegetable waste from the cleaning of vegetables daily.

One day there was a terrible argument in the front yard because our aunty who lived one house away accused Yew Ping of calling her ducks home.

Mum being a peace maker, asked aunty to take "her duck"
 home. Actually Aunty could not tell which one was her duck because she was not really that alert. Mum having been a primary school teacher has a good memory and when she counted her ducks later, it meant that Aunty had taken one of our brood.

But any way, Yew Ping was also very alert. She went to Aunty's house and counted their ducks. They had one duck more.

Mum and Yew Ping kept MUM...and peace reigned.

My mother said, "Never mind, one less duck would not make a difference, because our ducks were growing fatter every day because of their good food. Two of our ducks were more than three of aunty's ducks..."

(Today, people who rear ducks may not depend on rice bran or copra waste because they us chemical feed)