Mandarin Duck thread ( for posting pictures and discussing)

[BYC-user-174785]

I already have plenty of ducklings. I let people start picking them up in August usually and then I ship as soon as the weather cools down. I usually have some hens start a second clutch during the summer but most of my drakes are already in eclipse plumage so I doubt they will lay again. I can put you down on my waiting list. It doesn't commit you to a pair, so you can change your mind later on.

Shelly I think you have less than a week left. Have they externally pipped? I have three eggs in my incubator hatching and two have already externally pipped.

 

[ShellyBear]

Hay, I don't know if its a girl or boy yet. Now that the duckling has hatch I can move them to the bigger aviary, but will wait a little.

my one egg under the hen that I left hatch last night but the ones in the incubator haven't yet.

 

[SarahIrl]

Help required guys! Putting in a new enclosure for mandarins this week. Have posts, wire, pond plan, netting for covering enclosure, nesting box plan, all good. The thing is, I am making a BIG enclosure for just a trio of mandarins, is it advisable to keep any other birds with them?? I'd also like something to lay eggs most of the year, and was wondering if they get really bothered by bantams? Just a couple of bantam hens to keep my egg requirements satisfied...

I kept chickens for years until I just took a break for the last two, so am well able for birds. Just wondered if mandarins would be completely adverse to sharing space? I think if they aren't good for sharing I could well be overrun with mandarins come two years... I CANNOT eat a fertile egg.

In fact, I am still running a hatching service and currently have two incubators and three brooders in my kitchen.

 

[QuoVadis]

If Mandarins are raised by humans using an incubator and brooder, will they be at all tame? How do they compare to domestic ducks in tameness and over all personality? Can they ever be let out of their enclosure or would I never see them again? Can they be kept with normal domestic ducks if they are raised with them (or by them, like with a domestic broody duck)?

Thanks!

 

[cajunfowl0]

If Mandarins are raised by humans using an incubator and brooder, will they be at all tame? How do they compare to domestic ducks in tameness and over all personality? Can they ever be let out of their enclosure or would I never see them again? Can they be kept with normal domestic ducks if they are raised with them (or by them, like with a domestic broody duck)?

Thanks!

Mandarins are wild birds therefore are not domesticated at all. You can buy a pair and spend time with the ducklings they have but they will never be truly tame. They will really only just tolerate you. The closest I can get to my birds is about 5 feet. They should not be raised with donestic ducks or geese. To many factors come into play mainly hybridization and also wild ducks such as domestics are not immune to many diseases that domestics carry. I know of a few people that keep call ducks with their teal but like I said some hybridization occurs. I have let my shelduck out of the enclosure(was actually a accident) and he was fine but I would never trust the smaller species such as teal wood ducks and mandarins.

 

[Buck Oakes]

yeah my brothers call ducks are sharing an aviary with my mandarins but i would probably never let my mandarins near my muscovies except their interaction through the aviary walls

 

[TheYeldman]

If you spend a lot of time hand feeding mealworms to the ducklings they can get quite tame, coming up to you when you go into the men to be handfed. They tolerate being touched a bit but you can't really pick them up (only if they decide to stand on you). If you stop feeding them they quickly revert back to wild though, although they can be re-tamed a lot easier than if you never hand fed them in the first place

 

[TheYeldman]

I should point out this is experience from letting the mothers raise them. I don't know about artificially raising them

 

[Buck Oakes]

if i end up actually having a boy and a girl i'm going to artificially raise the babies, and i know thats super hard, but to help it act more domesticated i'm going to hatch some muscovies long with it or them since their hatch dates are super close together (muscovies being 32-37 days and mandarins being 28-32 days). so i think hatching them with other ducklings would help taming them a lot, especially since muscovies show so much love to their care givers even as small little babies, but thats mostly because mine imprint so i think that will help the mandarin babies imprint

 

[jridenour09]

Hello everyone. I'm very new to BYC. I am looking for some mandrian eggs for hatching. Can anyone help?