Crazy Mandarin Ducks

I have purchased a pair of Mandarin Ducks. They are beautiful birds and I have high hopes of being able to show them. But we have one slight problem...they are completely wild. They were hatched at a large hatchery and not hand tamed at all so consequently by the time we got them as juveniles they were wild. We got them last October and since then we have been working very hard to tame them down but no success. We have a nice aviary we built especially for them but have recently moved them into a smaller pen in hopes they would get used to people being around them. We have also tried Rescue Remedy drops. Nothing works. They have even actually injured themselves trying to get away from us. We need something that will calm them down so they can be held and eventually taken to shows and examined by judges. Does anyone have any suggestions? We paid a lot of money for them and it's very discouraging when we can't even hold them. At this point I think medicine is the only thing left. We raise other ducks, we keep them separated, but never had problems like this before.

Mandarins are a wild species of duck and are different in behavior from the domestic duck breeds it sounds like you're experienced with. Think of the difference between a wolf and a domestic dog for comparison.

Your best bet is probably to put them back in that nice aviary you built and forget about showing them. Let them settle in and hopefully breed, then work with some of their ducklings if you're still intent on showing some.

For being as colorful and showy as they are, Mandarins typically don't win shows. Judges typically don't handle them either,they know they're higher strung and don't want to risk chasing an escapee through the show hall. There's not much variation between birds except for conditioning either. At nearly all shows the bantam duck classes are dominated by call ducks and they usually win- there's more variation, judges know them better, and there's some skill to breeding a "good" one. A good diet and clean water will make a perfect mandarin.

DT