I'm sorry about what happened to your ducks. Friends of ours had a problem with raccoons getting in their coop, and ever since they put a radio out, they haven't had a problem. This is a more humane way, to deal with the situation. I would consider getting ducks around her age, but time will...
I'm asking because we think one of our chickens, could have upper respiratory. We isolated her, her eyes are swollen shut and she breathes a little heavy. We were going to add apple cider vinegar and garlic to the rest of the flock's water, but we have ducks so I wasn't sure if we could.
I saw someone needing to rehome 4 laying hens the thread is, "4 healthy, 2 year old laying hens, need new home". I don't know if they're still available. Just thought I'd let you know.
After everyone is in the coop, locked up for the night, we the introduce new chickens about 30 minutes after, to make sure everyone is calm. Once new birds are in the coop we check on them at least twice every 30 minutes. The next morning when they're let out, we make sure we're there to...
You can look at animals in need of free rehoming or your state thread, if you don't see anyone who needs to find their ducks a home, you can post their too.
I'd suggest checking to see if you're even allowed to have ducks where you live, because you don't want to be at the mercy of your neighbors. Drakes (male ducks) are quieter than females they sound raspy, while females the quack. You can have drakes, females, or both, but once you combine them...
They'll start laying around 6 months. It's hard to age them, younger chickens have softer feet and bright red combs and wattles, older birds' feet are rough and don't have as much color in their face.
When one of our chickens wasn't moving around much, panting, and her butt felt like there was an egg in it, we sat her in warm water with Epson Salt. She ended up being egg bound. Her feathers weren't missing and she wasn't red though. Hope this helps.
We've been at the park trying to get the ducks this week and weren't successful. The wild geese aren't helping, because when we try to luer the ducks with food, the geese come, plus the people. We aren't going over the weekend because of all the people at the the park, so we'll try again next...
I'd say keep them in the run for a week, so they get used to their new home. Then you could let them free range. That's how we did it with our first girls. We also sat in the run with them.