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DRAPER -- This next story is about 11 baby ducks, seven children and one big tractor. It's also about a neighborhood coming together to calm one frantic mother.
In the last month or so one Draper neighborhood undertook a pet project of sorts. School-age kids kept vigil over a mother duck and her eggs. Even the scouts got involved.
Laura Lowther, who helped rescue the ducks, said, "They would check on her and tell us how the eggs were looking."
Saturday those eggs hatched. And as the momma mallard was leading her brood of 11 Sunday morning, all 11 fell through a storm drain grate.
Jane Kahle said "I could hear a lot of extra birds, peep, peep, peeping."
And that's when neighbors went running to the rescue. One pulled out the tractor to pull off the grate. Another jumped in with a fishing net to fish out the baby ducks, but there were only 10.
Kaden Lowther said, "I was mostly scared for the one in the tube."
Breanna Lowther said, "Yeah, he got stuck in it when we tried to get it out."
So in came the veterinarian, who also happens to live in the neighborhood. Together they all hatched a plan.
Aaron Barney, D.V.M., said, "From the other manhole we used a garden hose to flush her back towards me. And she got about a foot away, and we could reach in and grab her with a fishing net."
With the last one scooped up, all were returned unharmed to their frantic mother. And even those mothers standing by felt this momma duck's frustration.
"I didn't want anything to happen to her little babies," Laura said.
And nothing did happen to them. The neighbors decided they would walk the mama duck and her babies to the river and release them, lest they fall through another grate.
In all, this rescue operation took about an hour.
