Duck sleeping habits....

[jpayne615]

I have two Peking ducks, a male and a female (Sir Quacksalot and Day-Z) and I absolutely love them. We live on a lot of land so they have the ability to play and forage to their hearts content. The only problem is that we have a huge coyote infestation and it makes me nervous for the ducks to be out past dusk (we lost one duck to a coyote earlier in the year). I built them a predator safe pen and built a house for them to sleep in with plenty of pine straw in and around it. I let them out every morning and every night they would come wait by the pen for me to close and lock it. That is until recently. My uncle has a man-made pond on his land that he uses for his goats and cows and such. The ducks discovered this about two days ago and both nights didn't come back to the pen. The second night I had to actually go herd them back down to the pen (quite a frustrating ordeal) just so I could shut them up. I don't mind them playing in the pond, but the cow/goat fences that surround it are not predator proof and I worry that the ducks will get eaten, so they need to come home at night. Any suggestions on how to make them return? I have a kiddy pool in their pen so they can play in it after dark and the pen has room for just the two of them, so I don't really think they are that discontent with it.

P.S. I also noticed that they were sleeping on the water when I went to round them up.Is this normal? It's been cold in Alabama (for us) the past week and a friend suggested that since they weren't in their house with pine straw, they were trying to stay warm since water temperature is usually higher than ground temperature during a cold snap.

 

[Carcajou]

Hi jpayne615. You might try feeding them in their enclosure in the morning with what they will eat in 10-15 minutes then take their feeder away. Then bring it out in the afternoon (I am currently doing 4 PM) and again place it in their enclosure. This should work to get them back in the enclosure and it will be easier to get them into their house for safekeeping after dark. If they get used to roosting on the pond it might become next to impossible to get them off it after dark. I learned this the hard way last winter.

Best of luck and let us know how things go.

And WELCOME to BYC! You will find some really great people on this forum.