Is your refrigerator running? Just joking. Keep them fed and have a nice place for them to sleep and they should stick around
I have six runners and two pekins. This winter, during the very coldest, nastiest weather, the ducks disappeared. They had been hanging around with the chickens during the day and going into a secure pen on their own at night. When they were nowhere to be found the first night I went to close everyone up I thought they had gone for good. I couldn't imagine them surviving the -40 windchills we were having, and without food, etc. The next morning I went looking for them and found them in the small river that borders our property. They were hanging out with a wild mallard and looked happy as can be. I didn't have any way of making them come back to the coop area, so I let them be. They stayed down on the river, without ever returning to the coop for food, for well over a week. Then one night they were just back in their pen like they had never left. They've since done this a couple more times but I don't panic anymore. They show back up and resume their in-at-night, out-in-morning routine. This is their first winter, so I'm not sure what will happen in the spring. They may decide that the river is just fine for good. My chickens and ducks totally free-range and so far they are still around, if that helps at all!
