Clip or not to Clip...Wings on female Mallard

[lucyducky]

Hello all,

I am having a moral battle with myself as to whether I should clip my wild/domesticated ducks wings.

She has flown off before (4 days) and came home. Recently she flew off for an overnighter and came back with a sprain on her left leg. I have been keeping her inside the house to rest and to heal with pool time twice a day.

This morning, she flew from her bed upstairs, through our kitchen and out through the back door into her pool....then from the pool out into yonder skies.

She is beautiful when she flies...she doesn't think that dogs, cats and people are predators so I am not sure what to do in regards to clipping her wings.

I don't want people to give me grief about how I am raising my duck, I am looking for honest answers to my moral conflict.

Thank you in advance

 

[SJUDD]

I clip my Mallards wings... well, technically I clip one so they can still get off the ground a bit but they cannot get up into the sky. I think it is safer for them. I didn't clip until I had one of them fly off and I had to go look for her. Found her a few blocks away and it really scared me. Since she is completely dependent on me for food and has never been in the wild before, I felt that it would be better to keep her "grounded" so that she doesn't run into anything out in the world that could hurt her.

 

[lucyducky]

Thank you for your reply

SJUDD

I do worry about her when she is gone....

 

[redstar14]

I would clip them or one day she might not come back

 

[BlackberryAcres]

Do you just have the one duck?

When we first got ducks, we got two Mallards and two Cayugas from a friend. The first day out of their new house, one of the Mallards got spooked by the dog and she flew away. We clipped the other one's wings. That year we had to separate her from the Cayugas, because the drake had pulled out a chunk of her skin while mating. He was just too big for her. The next year we didn't clip her wings, but she stuck around because it was her home and the other ducks were her family. She even had 4 ducklings that she had hatched out. This winter she died.

We currently have three Mallards that we got from someone who couldn't take care of them anymore. 30 some of our other ducks are MUCH bigger than they are. We decided not to clip their wings so they could get away from the bigger drakes easily. They fly around the property, but stick pretty close to home. They want to stay with their family.

If she's the only duck, she's probably going to keep flying away looking for friends. If you want her to stay close by without clipping her wings, maybe get her a friend who is too big to fly? Another female would be better than a male so you don't have to worry about mating injuries.

They are definitely beautiful when they fly.