Oh dear...I wonder why they are here?! I guess one positive side is that they might be duck friendly. But if it is invasive, perhaps it reduces the food supply for the native birds and other animals. MMmmmm. Hopefully they wont spread to the river near my house and invade our area!
Mmm..I'm going to try this!!! Maybe in the morning, we should also sing "Alle meine Entchen, schwimmen auf dem See, ...." to really get them in the mood for waking up!It took me a while and my friend Google came up empty-handed, but my other friend Amazonia now wants to sell me »Wühlmausdraht«, »Schweissgittermatten«, »Volierendraht« and »Kaninchendraht«… But that stuff is even more expensive in Germany than here!
And yes, Ducks love to sleep outside, i assume Muscovies are the same, and you will need to develop a routine to make them go into their house every evening.
Here this usually starts after sunset, when Blanca Duck approaches the porch, stating that she is "sooo hungry" and "didn't find a single bit to eat the whole day.« After a while Pompom Duck joins her, then Earthquack, Pinball, Smaug and Pommes too quack the hunger-song. In the end 17 quacking ducks and eight rasping drakes make a deafening noise, so i grab the flower box (Balkonkasten) and prepare their supper-bowl with cold water, sunflower seeds, dry cat food, cracked corn, whatever greens i have at hand and whatever kitchen scraps we have.
I carefully step in between the piranha ducks, lower the bowl so they can test their dinner and then say »Alle Enten gehen jetzt schlafen!« and start walking towards the duck house. All ducks then start running into the house to secure a good spot at the dinner - bowl and usually when i step out of the house all ducks are inside and i only have to close the door.
Ducks can be trained to do obey simple commands, but careful: They can also train their humons to obey simple quacks…
Yes, you're right. We ended up buying stuff (see picture, we got the stuff at the top) at the Raiffeissen shop. Do you think this would keep Weasles (Marder) out? Do I have to dig it into the ground a bit in case the predators like to dig?It took me a while and my friend Google came up empty-handed, but my other friend Amazonia now wants to sell me »Wühlmausdraht«, »Schweissgittermatten«, »Volierendraht« and »Kaninchendraht«… But that stuff is even more expensive in Germany than here!
Well, I guess I might have spoken too soon. Upon further inspection, it appears that the trash pandas or "Waschbaeren" were brought to Germany in the 1930s for their fur but escaped and are now so prolific that they are hunted all year round with over 12,000 animals in this state, NRW, alone. So, @WannaBeHillBilly, I guess the correct answer is, "we dont have them here...yet". Speaking of garbage, we had a disturbing scene (involving tampons, chick-poop filled newspaper, and other general disgusting garbage that is meant to go into bags and never be seen again) in front of my house a month ago, which I also had to collect in full 9pm daylight as relaxed passerby had their evening walks. A bag was peeking out from the lid when I took the garbage out, which has never been an issue before. When I saw this vomit-inducing display from my window just within an hour of putting the bin outside, I was almost too embarrassed to go out and clean it up
. I suspected that it must have been some kind of flying birds. Now, after considering my childhood with raccoons in PA and the idea that they are indeed in NRW, I'm very concerned thinking that there could be raccoons in my neighborhood, or maybe even already were!
I dont think the plastic German garbage bins will be any defense to raccoons. More importantly though, if they like chickens and ducks...do you think that the metal cloth I bought, hopefully like the one that you and @Miss Lydia recommended, will be enough for raccoons?!
) no raccoon has made it into my duck house by tearing through the chicken wire. They would have to climb up ~1.5 meters, hang on the chicken wire and then tear through. It seems they can't do that so easy, so they focus on easier to reach food in the compost (No honey, no food in to the compost...) or the neighbors trash-cans...
I would go with the zinc plated stuff, that green stuff might be plastic mesh only. They sell this here too as Poly-Hardware-Cloth. BS-Name!!! It is even weaker than chicken wire. And as said: No staples! Nails or screws with washers to attach it to the wood.
My Ducks have to earn their names: Ok Pompom was easy, she is wearing one on her head, so was Pommes Duck, her crest looks like small pommes-fritte sticking out of her head. Then there is Blanca, one of the White Layers, Earthquack who jumps full speed into the pool causing ducknamis and Bazilla Duck who had an infected foot last year, so she was called »Bazillenmutterschiff« (Oh boy, mothership of bacteria, bacteria are sometimes called Bazillen in German), just short Bazilla. This years Momma duck was given the name Pinball because during her broodieness she ran around in the yard like a pinball, running over the other ducks and bouncing off the drakes, the neighbors grand-daughter came up with the name. Curiosity Duck is a very curious duck, Katharina reminds me to a russian nurse, once caring for me after surgery and there is Nona, short for No-Name because we just could not find a name for her. In retrospective Alberta would have been better, because she is the Einstein of the flock. Mini Duck is named after a one of @Magnolia Ducks ducks and Limpy Drake, well he has a bad leg and is limping. Then there is Erpelchen who was such a sweet drakeling and is now a full blown sex-offender, the drakes i got from my neighbors last winter, Pomponell (Romanian Version of Pompom), Spot (black spot on his white chest) and Brownie, for his beautiful brown feathers.
