“The duck is the Trojan horse,” Webster told me. That’s where the danger lurked secretly, he meant. Wild ducks might land on your flooded paddy, carrying the virus, fouling the water, and infecting your domestic ducks. Your ducks would appear fine, but when your son brought them home to their coop for the night, they could infect your chickens. Before long your chickens—and your son too—might be dead of bird flu.
