Naming & taming my 4 ducklings

TLopes · Mar 30, 2017

Hey y'all! This is my first time keeping ducklings, so any taming advice is welcomed! I got the smaller ones at a few days old, the bigger ones a little older (these are best guesses as the sales associate was a dunder head). They like me so far. They let me feed them treats by hand, hang around them, etc. They run to the corner if I move too quickly of course. I pick them up several times a day for only minutes at a time for cuddling as I have other things to do. Every time I pick them up they fight it less and 'scream' less

. Particularly I need advice on getting them used to my kids. I have a 4 year old boy and the 1 year old is obviously too young to hold them, he just likes to observe. I'm hoping for some girls so we can harvest duck eggs. BUT I'm also happy with their pest control for the garden and they will be treated as family pets. SO, now that you know our background, on to their names! ;D I didn't want to name them yet since I don't know sex but I read that if you start early you can get them used to names. I'm thinking of repeating their names as I stroke them when I cuddle them individually? Any experience here? I'll color code zip ties to their legs later probably. If they end up not responding to their names, nbd, I just want them tame enough to hang with me and the kids while I garden.

Meet: Blue, Fig, Gladys, & Mabel. OBVIOUSLY wishful thinking for girls hahaa.. Blue & Fig are pretty gender neutral names though, they are the younger ones.

Learningstill · Mar 30, 2017

Ducks are not cuddly pets. However, you can definitely keep them tame enough to eat from your hands or come in response to a sound or word. My daughter every time she went out to feed her ducks she would yell out foo-foo in a higher pitch voice and then she would feed them. Now, whenever we want our ducks to come or want to do a head count we yell foo-foo and they all come waddling. We make sure to still yell it out when it is feeding time as well, so it does not lose its charm.
Best of luck with your family's new addition! Ducks are fascinating to watch :lol:

Hope you get some egg layers

Ducks4us · Mar 30, 2017

Super cute! Sounds like you are doing a great job! I have no kids so no advice there.
Mine are 3 1/2 weeks and three are 4 1/2 weeks. No one comes to their names...
But they are cuddly
I cant get any photos to upload right now. But i have plenty of them cuddled up on my lap

Ashleymarie529 · Mar 31, 2017

TLopes said:
Hey y'all! This is my first time keeping ducklings, so any taming advice is welcomed! I got the smaller ones at a few days old, the bigger ones a little older (these are best guesses as the sales associate was a dunder head). They like me so far. They let me feed them treats by hand, hang around them, etc. They run to the corner if I move too quickly of course. I pick them up several times a day for only minutes at a time for cuddling as I have other things to do. Every time I pick them up they fight it less and 'scream' less . Particularly I need advice on getting them used to my kids. I have a 4 year old boy and the 1 year old is obviously too young to hold them, he just likes to observe. I'm hoping for some girls so we can harvest duck eggs. BUT I'm also happy with their pest control for the garden and they will be treated as family pets. SO, now that you know our background, on to their names! ;D I didn't want to name them yet since I don't know sex but I read that if you start early you can get them used to names. I'm thinking of repeating their names as I stroke them when I cuddle them individually? Any experience here? I'll color code zip ties to their legs later probably. If they end up not responding to their names, nbd, I just want them tame enough to hang with me and the kids while I garden.

Meet: Blue, Fig, Gladys, & Mabel. OBVIOUSLY wishful thinking for girls hahaa.. Blue & Fig are pretty gender neutral names though, they are the younger ones.

Another thread with these darlings!

I think what you're doing right now is great. Your kids can interact by hand feeding and just hanging out with them. Spending lots of time talking to the ducklings about random kid stuff or stroking the ducklings from a young age so that they don't fear the kids later. If you keep that up, they may allow petting.

Recently I've been on a mission to remind the adult ducks that they used to love me as babies... idk why but when they hit puberty, I turned into "that scary human". Now I ONLY hand feed. Now this won't work for large flocks but I have 6 ducks, so it's okay. Now that they can put a face to the hand that had always been stocking the food trough in the coop, they like me better and they come to me and hop on my lap and stuff. Within a WEEK of doing this. So now I only hand feed. I just sit on the ground and cup my hands full of feed over and over again until the savages are full and then sweep the dropped feed up. They don't run when I enter the yard, even when I don't have food, they'll still hang out around me and I'm much happier (I think they are too, since I'm not so scary anymore) If you can swing it, it's a great bonding experience in my experience.

TLopes · Mar 31, 2017

Ducks4us said:
Super cute! Sounds like you are doing a great job! I have no kids so no advice there.
Mine are 3 1/2 weeks and three are 4 1/2 weeks. No one comes to their names...
But they are cuddly
I cant get any photos to upload right now. But i have plenty of them cuddled up on my lap

that's super awesome to hear they're cuddly! Have you had them from hatching? What did you do to get them to be ok cuddling??

TLopes · Mar 31, 2017

Ashleymarie529 said:
Another thread with these darlings!

I think what you're doing right now is great. Your kids can interact by hand feeding and just hanging out with them. Spending lots of time talking to the ducklings about random kid stuff or stroking the ducklings from a young age so that they don't fear the kids later. If you keep that up, they may allow petting.

Recently I've been on a mission to remind the adult ducks that they used to love me as babies... idk why but when they hit puberty, I turned into "that scary human". Now I ONLY hand feed. Now this won't work for large flocks but I have 6 ducks, so it's okay. Now that they can put a face to the hand that had always been stocking the food trough in the coop, they like me better and they come to me and hop on my lap and stuff. Within a WEEK of doing this. So now I only hand feed. I just sit on the ground and cup my hands full of feed over and over again until the savages are full and then sweep the dropped feed up. They don't run when I enter the yard, even when I don't have food, they'll still hang out around me and I'm much happier (I think they are too, since I'm not so scary anymore) If you can swing it, it's a great bonding experience in my experience.

hello again! Thank you for the awesome experience tips. I will continue what I'm doing and hope they don't forget me after puberty lol. Great tips for my kids too! The duckies are a little bigger and in a deeper box now so they startle a little when they see me :/ I'll have to work on that. Just finished their upgrade today

TLopes · Mar 31, 2017

@Ashley. Forgot to mention that I think that's really fast progress, one week! Wow! I've read a little about how intelligent ducks are. still hoping training isn't terribly difficult. I dont need tricks, just friendly loving ducks lol

Ducks4us · Mar 31, 2017

TLopes said:
that's super awesome to hear they're cuddly! Have you had them from hatching? What did you do to get them to be ok cuddling??

I would sit with my hand in the brooder till they would calm down and come check out my hand. I fed treats from my hand.
And i took him to swim in the bathtub daily, then would line an area on the bathroom floor with towls and put the heat lamp in for them to dry off from swimming. And i would sit on the floor with them as they did this. At a week old i moved them to the outside coop to brood them and every evening i sit inside with them for like an hour. Being down on their level they calm down real fast and all wanted to sit on my lap.
Now at 3 1/2 weeks and some are 4 1/2 weeks i still sit every single night inside with them for an hour and they all take turns on my lap. They nibble on my fingers and my clothes.
Really however you do it just make sure you do it regular enough. It definitely takes time. But its so worth it.

TLopes · Mar 31, 2017

Ducks4us said:
I would sit with my hand in the brooder till they would calm down and come check out my hand. I fed treats from my hand.
And i took him to swim in the bathtub daily, then would line an area on the bathroom floor with towls and put the heat lamp in for them to dry off from swimming. And i would sit on the floor with them as they did this. At a week old i moved them to the outside coop to brood them and every evening i sit inside with them for like an hour. Being down on their level they calm down real fast and all wanted to sit on my lap.
Now at 3 1/2 weeks and some are 4 1/2 weeks i still sit every single night inside with them for an hour and they all take turns on my lap. They nibble on my fingers and my clothes.
Really however you do it just make sure you do it regular enough. It definitely takes time. But its so worth it.

thank you for the great advice!! I will make sure I spend more quality time for each session, more regularly.

TLopes · Mar 31, 2017

So this happened during this mornings cuddle session!! We are on our way! They weren't struggling to get away and they came to me freely one by one.

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Naming & taming my 4 ducklings

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