Ducks keeping pets

[RJKnott]

So I have a big 400sq foot pen for my ducks. And there are 4 coops, 2 ducks to a coop at night. Each coop has a nesting box area and a small hardware cloth enclosed run area.

Well the back roof of the pen was leaking onto the top of the coop for my Rouens, Rio and Rudi. And it’s been on and off raining for a while now so I haven’t been able to get up on a ladder to properly fix it. So to keep their coop from flooding I laid a piece of plywood at an angle so most of the water runs off the coop instead of into it

been like that for a couple weeks. I go out this morning and I move the plywood to get their eggs and a mouse jumps out of the way.

I shrug and think “eh mice happen” and make a mental note to get a live trap later today. I notice the mouse didn’t really run away though and is still there which I think is odd

So I move the board fully away and Rio and Rudi, who I let out of their coop, Start nipping at my legs and quacking at me. They run to the side of their coop and are touching their bill up over the edge of the top of the coop and the mouse is touching noses with them. I’m thinking, what in the Disney movie nonsense is going on here. Then I move the board fully and find not just that mouse, but a clumped up gathering of straw and 4 little baby mice. Rio and Rudi start nibbling my legs more now and start trying to chase me away til I walk away to go get a container. I think “great my ducks have pet mice”

i come back with a box to relocate the mice to find momma mouse has moved 2 of them aready. I found her new nest, away from the pen and moved her other 2 babies for her.

Rio and Rudi were highly agitated at me for disturbing their pet mice

 

[Miss Lydia]

They also may have been asking for pet mice snacks for themselves. My Muscovy will eat baby mice. Found that out the hard way when i picked up a nest inside my storage building with a shovel and tiny mice fell on the ground only to be scarfed up by my ducks.

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

Aww, what a lovely story. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Majorbleepbleep]

Okay this is obnoxiously adorable.

I know my ducks though would be doing the attention behavior so that I'd let them eat the mice,... my ducks are food-whores, lol

 

[RJKnott]

At first I thought they wanted food too. It they didn’t try to eat the momma mouse, and the nest was resting on the hardware clothe so they could see the babies and made no attempt to eat them. Just wanted to chase me off away from them and then just let the momma hop down and scamper out of the pen with them.
It also let me find an entry way into the pen wall that I have to shore up this week too

my ducks never cease to amuse me

 

[neo71665]

I had a horse once that took in a stray kitten. He would pick it up and put it in his feed trough like a momma cat. The cat got trained to him enough at one point she would jump up on the fence then jump on his back. Wasn't anything to look out the window and see a cat sitting on a horse out in the pasture grazing. The horse hated dogs and would stomp one to death, esp if it messed with his cat.

I still highly doubt ducks are keeping a pet mouse.

 

[Chuckie chicken]

Maybe they weren't "pets", maybe the ducks were raising their own food!

At first I thought they wanted food too. It they didn’t try to eat the momma mouse, and the nest was resting on the hardware clothe so they could see the babies and made no attempt to eat them. Just wanted to chase me off away from them and then just let the momma hop down and scamper out of the pen with them.
It also let me find an entry way into the pen wall that I have to shore up this week too

my ducks never cease to amuse me

 

[RJKnott]

Maybe they weren't "pets", maybe the ducks were raising their own food!

Heh that’s probably what it was but their reactions cracked me up

 

[Chuckie chicken]

Heh that’s probably what it was but their reactions cracked me up

They wanted to keep them hidden from you so they could fatten them up using your feed.

 

[N Good]

I mean, a mouse can look a bit like a fresh hatched ducklings, same size and color for some breeds