Duck sitting on nest full of golf balls. Help! (Long post)

[chickens really]

Two year old Ducks are Adults for a year...Leave them and let nature take its course as you have been by leaving them free range...Survival of the fittest.

 

[BreanneRN]

Two year old Ducks are Adults for a year...Leave them and let nature take its course as you have been by leaving them free range...Survival of the fittest.

I have to agree, if they are 2 years old, and the current plan has been to feed them, but allow them total free range on the lake, continue the plan. If you want more ducks, collect eggs, incubate and raise to adult size, release to wild and let nature take its course... And yeah, remove the golf balls! Not sure why you want to remove 1/2 at a time, but I don't have to know. Since predation will be a continuing problem, from time to time you are going to have to hatch more ducks. But I don't think I would do that every year.

 

[Jinglebells0518]

I have to agree, if they are 2 years old, and the current plan has been to feed them, but allow them total free range on the lake, continue the plan. If you want more ducks, collect eggs, incubate and raise to adult size, release to wild and let nature take its course... And yeah, remove the golf balls! Not sure why you want to remove 1/2 at a time, but I don't have to know. Since predation will be a continuing problem, from time to time you are going to have to hatch more ducks. But I don't think I would do that every year.

Yeah we won't do this again. All of the kids are going off to school. We've raised ducks for 12 years on this lake and never had a duckling survive (and only ever had 5 hatch naturally despite having 16 ducks) so we got excited about these.

I don't know how smart ducks are but the past two times she's come back to an empty nest she stopped laying for a while as if she gave up. So far as long as we've left a replacement, she has kept laying which gives us a better chance of a successful hatch. Leaving some will give me a chance to see if she is still laying. At least that's my thought process and is obviously dependant on ducks being somewhat smart and capable of understanding.

And my plan was never to protect her in an enclosure. My only options were leave it up to nature or rescue eggs for incubation and keep her off her nest at night by doing so.

 

[BreanneRN]

Wishing you a successful hatch and enjoy your ducklings!