Duck mom needs help!!

[RERICKSON4122]

Hey y’all!! I’m new here and from Ohio. I’ve referenced and used your blogs and posts/questions on several occasions this past year. Finally, I’m reaching out because I’m stuck on making a decision for my female duck. She is 3 years old, has been free range the entire time. We had two other male ducks she came here with as babies that ventured out to the main road over this past winter on separate occasions about a month apart and got hit. Our female has never ventured down there but I caught her yesterday just soon enough to shoo her back up into our yard. She wanders across our side road over to the neighbors house to get in their pool and I assume lay her eggs… still can’t find them…but never went down to the main road (state route) or anywhere near it. I put her in our large dog run (200ft rectangular set up off the side of our house with a wood gate and welded wire fencing) with shelter, and small pool as well as a dark enclosed small nesting box (the top of an old dog house, small opening) but now I am feeling guilty and worried she will be in distress. She wants nothing to do with other ducks and seems ok with the chickens (we only have hens) but with it being 8 on 1, they tend to attack and chase her in their pen/coop run. So we’ve just let her free range until yesterday afternoon. The neighbors will be putting chemicals in their pool soon and we’d really like to have her eggs as we do enjoy eating them!! Any help or suggestions or maybe reassurance that I’m not a bad mom for putting her in a safe run would be appreciated. No foxes or raccoons in the area that we know of either. Never had that problem.

 

[Plague]

If the other ducks are not being mean to her, I would put her with them. Just so she would have some company, even if she doesn't seem to care, ducks just seem happier with more friends. She just may need time for them all to get to be buddies. I wouldn't feel bad, they don't understand the danger, so you are just looking after her.

 

[ruthhope]

I missed where the other ducks are. But that fenced off area is amply big enough for several ducks. Why not put a couple more females in there with her?

 

[bhaugh]

Letting ducks free range to others yards and risk injury or death is careless imo. As her guardian it’s up to you to confine her and be a good steward to her and the neighbor. Although the neighbor may tell you it’s ok, maybe she is just being neighborly. Get you duck friends and keep her confined. If she is happy then she won’t find the need to wander off.

 

[RERICKSON4122]

Letting ducks free range to others yards and risk injury or death is careless imo. As her guardian it’s up to you to confine her and be a good steward to her and the neighbor. Although the neighbor may tell you it’s ok, maybe she is just being neighborly. Get you duck friends and keep her confined. If she is happy then she won’t find the need to wander off.

I stocked up on frozen fruits and veggies as well as romaine lettuce and cucumbers. She’s not acting upset or depressed. Her other three ducks that she grew up with wandered to the road and got hit. She hasn’t acted weird or stressed at all and they’ve been gone 6 months. When we let the chickens free range she just lays in the middle of the yard. But if they come too close she tends to go after them. And when the other ducks were around, she usually ventured away from them. She lets me come close and pick her up or “pet” her but not my husband or son.