Just curious if anyone else has noticed anything like this. We have added a black swedish and blue swedish duck to our group of two mallard drakes. (Alas, used to be three mallard drakes, but a Fisher Cat got one of them.)
When the mallards were young, and for months, they were super great at following us. First by running after us around the house or yard, and then later flying to us. That lasted about 4 months, before they started to get a little independent. (It started with them anticipating where we were going, and them flying ahead of us to wait for us, but then later them "overshooting" a bit, and us having to chase them down and herd them back a bit.)
With the swedish, they are very friendly and social, but from the get go, they've not been nearly as good at following. They are very easily distracted. They'll start off following, but then spot something that catches their interest, and then lose track of you. They start to freak a little when they notice they're no longer with "the flock", but not so freaked that they keep an eye on you to prevent it from happening in the first place.
It strikes us that with a young wild duck, there's definitely a big survival purpose for sticking close to the group. And that instinct is not necessarily important in a domesticated duck, and might have been inadvertently bred out to some extent.
So, anyone else notice this with their more domestic ducks?
When the mallards were young, and for months, they were super great at following us. First by running after us around the house or yard, and then later flying to us. That lasted about 4 months, before they started to get a little independent. (It started with them anticipating where we were going, and them flying ahead of us to wait for us, but then later them "overshooting" a bit, and us having to chase them down and herd them back a bit.)
With the swedish, they are very friendly and social, but from the get go, they've not been nearly as good at following. They are very easily distracted. They'll start off following, but then spot something that catches their interest, and then lose track of you. They start to freak a little when they notice they're no longer with "the flock", but not so freaked that they keep an eye on you to prevent it from happening in the first place.
It strikes us that with a young wild duck, there's definitely a big survival purpose for sticking close to the group. And that instinct is not necessarily important in a domesticated duck, and might have been inadvertently bred out to some extent.
So, anyone else notice this with their more domestic ducks?
