13thmaiden
In the Brooder
- Apr 15, 2016
- 11
- 0
- 22
Hi, this is my first post and thread, so please, don't kill me.
In my neighborhood we have a large pond, and in this pond we've always had ducks, along with 3 ahengas, a resident heron, a few resident red-wing blackbirds, and the occasional Canadian geese visitors (And that's just the birds! We have turtles, various types of fish, lots of frogs and whatnot.)
Anyways, the ducks have always been a staple in our neighborhood, and are semi-feral. I say semi-feral because they come to people for food but they live a semi-wild lifestyle (outside, foraging, and making their own nests and no house coop or anything for them (the people around the pond have never felt the need to build them one.) Children feed them bread (I know not good for them but you can't tell the whole neighborhood to stop that) and they get fed usually in the morning by a neighbor across from the pond with duck feed. Through out the day they wander the neighborhood foraging through yards, and by rule we keep our dogs on leads when not in their own fenced in back yards. We do have pets cats, but they're fed well enough we don't much worry for the adult ducks safety.
Now of these guys, they are 5 pekings, 1 wood duck hen, and about 7 mallards, and 3 crosses between the pekings and mallards. For a long time they kept themselves evened between hens and drakes, they'd have ducklings and get some up to age, and some would leave for new ponds somewhere else. For a long time it was pure harmony and the ducks were happy and the neighbors were happy because the ducks were happy.
Well, in the 27 years I have lived in this neighborhood, there has never been an accident with the ducks. The worse thing that has happened was Gimpy, who was a peking who's leg was broken and healed incorrectly so he has a permanent limp. (the pekings previous keeper was NOT a good one (kept all 5 in a small cage and whatnot, bought them for Easter, you know the type) so when they released the ducks into the pond, the ducks were MUCH happier and healthier. Gimpy's leg by that point was healed and there wasn't much anyone could do to help him, so we just have Gimpy. But he does just fine. (Gimpy and the recent fly in Woodette are the only really named ducks, most all the children in the neighborhood give the ducks random names and never can remember which one they called which.)
I'm sad to say though, this year, some jerkwad on a cellphone who was NOT from our neighborhood came flying through (endangering pets/children/ducks) and killed one of our mallard females.
It's caused pure chaos in the pond.
Originally we had 6 females and 10 males: 3 mallard hens, 1 peking hen (the mother of the crosses), 1 hen cross, and the recent fly in Woodette a wood duck hen, (I call her a fly in because she came in on her own, she's pure wild, though she does partake in feed now). Of the drakes we have 4 mallard drakes, 4 peking drakes, and 2 cross drakes. Now while that put out 4 drakes, the others kept the calm and kept their females from being mobbed.
And with the death of one of our mallard hens, we now have males mobbing the females, fighting to near ripping each other apart, I haven't even seen Woodette in a while, I'm afraid she left when the mobbing started. I'm afraid that all this stress is going to cause the females not to lay this year, or worse, it will be such a free-for-all if any ducklings are born they'll end up killed by fighting drakes.
So I got the idea to try to get some adult hens to add to the flock to maybe even out the chaos and lessen the mobbing stress. But it's REALLY hard to find someone that sells an adult duck and not a duckling. I cannot raise the ducklings unfortunately (I'd love to but) 1) in the area I live, livestock is NOT allowed as a pet, this is why the pekings were released to the pond. and 2) I have 2 demon jack russells. If you know anything about Jacks, they are NOT a dog to keep small creatures around. I don't trust them and I'd be afraid even if I'm zealous in protecting the ducklings they'd get to them before the ducklings got big enough to kick their butts or escape (our pekings have been known to snap and attack at any animal threatening them if cornered, the mallards do like mallards and fly. All of them escape to water normally though.)
If I had adults I could atleast work to introduce them to the flock (I have a crate and can figure out ways to keep the adults safe until they are integrated.) but I'm also not sure if a hand-raised duck will do well. I think the pekings did well (they were technically hand-raised even if the husbandry of them was atrocious.) because there were 5 of them and were released as adults.
I want to help our neighborhood ducks out. Can anyone tell me if my idea to add some hens to the flock is a good idea and if it is, how can I find some adult hens?
I'm in south GA btw, and willing to ride and pick up some hens if I'm told this is a good idea and someone offers me some hens.
Please help!!
In my neighborhood we have a large pond, and in this pond we've always had ducks, along with 3 ahengas, a resident heron, a few resident red-wing blackbirds, and the occasional Canadian geese visitors (And that's just the birds! We have turtles, various types of fish, lots of frogs and whatnot.)
Anyways, the ducks have always been a staple in our neighborhood, and are semi-feral. I say semi-feral because they come to people for food but they live a semi-wild lifestyle (outside, foraging, and making their own nests and no house coop or anything for them (the people around the pond have never felt the need to build them one.) Children feed them bread (I know not good for them but you can't tell the whole neighborhood to stop that) and they get fed usually in the morning by a neighbor across from the pond with duck feed. Through out the day they wander the neighborhood foraging through yards, and by rule we keep our dogs on leads when not in their own fenced in back yards. We do have pets cats, but they're fed well enough we don't much worry for the adult ducks safety.
Now of these guys, they are 5 pekings, 1 wood duck hen, and about 7 mallards, and 3 crosses between the pekings and mallards. For a long time they kept themselves evened between hens and drakes, they'd have ducklings and get some up to age, and some would leave for new ponds somewhere else. For a long time it was pure harmony and the ducks were happy and the neighbors were happy because the ducks were happy.
Well, in the 27 years I have lived in this neighborhood, there has never been an accident with the ducks. The worse thing that has happened was Gimpy, who was a peking who's leg was broken and healed incorrectly so he has a permanent limp. (the pekings previous keeper was NOT a good one (kept all 5 in a small cage and whatnot, bought them for Easter, you know the type) so when they released the ducks into the pond, the ducks were MUCH happier and healthier. Gimpy's leg by that point was healed and there wasn't much anyone could do to help him, so we just have Gimpy. But he does just fine. (Gimpy and the recent fly in Woodette are the only really named ducks, most all the children in the neighborhood give the ducks random names and never can remember which one they called which.)
I'm sad to say though, this year, some jerkwad on a cellphone who was NOT from our neighborhood came flying through (endangering pets/children/ducks) and killed one of our mallard females.
It's caused pure chaos in the pond.
Originally we had 6 females and 10 males: 3 mallard hens, 1 peking hen (the mother of the crosses), 1 hen cross, and the recent fly in Woodette a wood duck hen, (I call her a fly in because she came in on her own, she's pure wild, though she does partake in feed now). Of the drakes we have 4 mallard drakes, 4 peking drakes, and 2 cross drakes. Now while that put out 4 drakes, the others kept the calm and kept their females from being mobbed.
And with the death of one of our mallard hens, we now have males mobbing the females, fighting to near ripping each other apart, I haven't even seen Woodette in a while, I'm afraid she left when the mobbing started. I'm afraid that all this stress is going to cause the females not to lay this year, or worse, it will be such a free-for-all if any ducklings are born they'll end up killed by fighting drakes.
So I got the idea to try to get some adult hens to add to the flock to maybe even out the chaos and lessen the mobbing stress. But it's REALLY hard to find someone that sells an adult duck and not a duckling. I cannot raise the ducklings unfortunately (I'd love to but) 1) in the area I live, livestock is NOT allowed as a pet, this is why the pekings were released to the pond. and 2) I have 2 demon jack russells. If you know anything about Jacks, they are NOT a dog to keep small creatures around. I don't trust them and I'd be afraid even if I'm zealous in protecting the ducklings they'd get to them before the ducklings got big enough to kick their butts or escape (our pekings have been known to snap and attack at any animal threatening them if cornered, the mallards do like mallards and fly. All of them escape to water normally though.)
If I had adults I could atleast work to introduce them to the flock (I have a crate and can figure out ways to keep the adults safe until they are integrated.) but I'm also not sure if a hand-raised duck will do well. I think the pekings did well (they were technically hand-raised even if the husbandry of them was atrocious.) because there were 5 of them and were released as adults.
I want to help our neighborhood ducks out. Can anyone tell me if my idea to add some hens to the flock is a good idea and if it is, how can I find some adult hens?
I'm in south GA btw, and willing to ride and pick up some hens if I'm told this is a good idea and someone offers me some hens.
Please help!!