I live right next to a small pond which leads into miles of wetlands. I free range my ducks, and they like hang out down at the pond and sometimes into the wetlands during the warm seasons. They come home as soon as it gets dark, they come when I call them, there haven't been any issues yet after four years, and it makes them happy. They love playing with the neighborhood mallards, which is pretty adorable. It's been beneficial, too. They teach my ducks how to forage, how to hide, and a bunch of other wild duck behaviors which has helped them free range. I've actually been hoping that they would mate with some of my girls to make my flock a bit more wild-smart and so that they might be a bit lighter & able to move around faster and fly up a few feet, but they unfortunately never did due to my Jumbo Pekin drakes being a little too competitive. Well, as it turns out...
The birds have been migrating back up these past few weeks. All's good and my ducks are happy to see their friends again, but I was watching them yesterday and two of the Mallards look a little bigger and meatier (...and Pekin-y...) than the rest. One drake and one hen. They can obviously fly just fine since they migrated all the way south and all the way back here, and they can obviously forage just fine since they're still alive, and they have Mallard coats (no visible white spots,) so I guess it's no harm done save for the fact that the drake is an absolute beast in the mating game. He has a GIGANTIC harem because he's so large and because he has light beak thanks to his giant, white father. I probably permanently altered their genepool, but it doesn't look like I did much harm. It probably actually raised their genetic diversity a good deal, and there might be a few white ducklings in a generation, but natural selection will take care of that.
My bad...
The birds have been migrating back up these past few weeks. All's good and my ducks are happy to see their friends again, but I was watching them yesterday and two of the Mallards look a little bigger and meatier (...and Pekin-y...) than the rest. One drake and one hen. They can obviously fly just fine since they migrated all the way south and all the way back here, and they can obviously forage just fine since they're still alive, and they have Mallard coats (no visible white spots,) so I guess it's no harm done save for the fact that the drake is an absolute beast in the mating game. He has a GIGANTIC harem because he's so large and because he has light beak thanks to his giant, white father. I probably permanently altered their genepool, but it doesn't look like I did much harm. It probably actually raised their genetic diversity a good deal, and there might be a few white ducklings in a generation, but natural selection will take care of that.
My bad...
