Domestic ducklings raised by people are unlikely to survive on their own. They cannot live on a pond as they do not learn from their mother the survival skills needed.
Ducks need predator proof housing, just like your chickens have.
Domestic mallards have been bred too long away from wild mallards. They should not be released into the wild.
Read the following and you will see why domestic should not be released. This is info from the El Paso Zoo:
Domestic ducks can also carry many diseases which wild populations of ducks do not have immunity to and which there is no cure for. New Castle Disease, duck virus enteritis (DVE), fowl cholera, paratyphoid, avian tuberculosis, chlamydiosis, bird flu and West Nile virus are just some of the diseases that domestic ducks can transmit to wild flocks. In 1993, Muscovy ducks, released into the canals in Venice, California, tested positive for duck plague, duck virus enteritis (DVE), a fatal herpes virus spread through feces. Ducks and geese on the canals began to have violent seizures and then died.
People were feeding the ducks and geese, which can cause them to have more and larger clutches. The canals had become overpopulated. This leads to stress from too many birds in too small a habitat, resulting in fighting, injuries, death and disease. All the ducks and geese in the canals were rounded up by the California Department of Fish and Game and killed out of fear that some birds might fly to other areas and infect wild flocks.
This issue received international attention, when residents tried to save their favorite birds by taking them to secret locations in an attempt to save them. However, it was the release of domestic ducks, compounded by feeding and the resulting overpopulation that was the real tragedy. (The full story and debate can be found in the Newsletter of the Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society, March 1994.
