Ewww Yuk My Duck ate a Baby Bird

[sheilaz]

I've been raising a few ducks for 3 or 4 years (diferent birds every year.) They free range plus I feed them duck food.

I have seen them eat snails and frogs several times, but yesterday they totally grossed me out by eating a fledgling bird, probably a sparrow or tit.

They were really quite manic about it, and a huge compitition arose for a taste. (I have 5 ducks that are about 3 months old.)

The irony of the whole thing is at the time I was helping a neighbor girl with a fledlging sparrow that she was nursing back to health after an encounter with a cat.

Has anyone else ever witnessed the same thing?

 

[MissPrissy]

Ducks are omnivors. They eat meat and vegetables. Slugs, bugs, snails, lizards, frogs, fish, mice, even baby birds. They also like to graze. It is very normal.

Alot of people assume geese are the same way but they are herbivors. They like to graze a pasture like a cow or a sheep.

 

[sheilaz]

Thanks Miss Prissy -- I new they were omnivors, but had no idea that they ate birds. It just somehow seems so "impolite." But I guess we mamamls dine on one another. Anyway, my cutsy "Donald Duck" image of them is forever shattered.

 

[tomstephens]

might seem strange but my chickens keep trying to eat birds too. My little 8 week old EE roo caught and was calling over his girls to chow down on a chickadee. The chickadee escaped amidst the pecking somehow but they sure tried to eat it.

 

[MissPrissy]

Chickens are raptors!

 

[Ace_king_brahma]

And cannibals! I've seen my first batch of light brahmas eat chicks that wandered away into their pen. That was when my image of them being so cute and harmless all the time faded away. I've seen ducks eat poop and anything else within reach!

 

[LinckHillPoultry]

Sheilaz, what kind of duck do you have?

I know muscovies are usually the most carnivorous out of all the ducks, heck, the other day my muscovy hen was running around all happy with a frog in her mouth, luckily, she let the poor guy go to live another day

 

[priszilla]

my ducks eat every frog they see-- and they even got a small snake. they have gotten a few mice ( wish they'd get all of those)

 

[Ang]

This thread gives me another reason to keep ducks! We always have snakes in the yard. I don't mind them so much but I don't want them getting into my house.

 

[Sparrow]

Cannibalism is very common in the animal kingdom. Most omnivores and carnivores have tendencies for doing it. It might seem really disturbing to us, but to them it's just an opportunistic protein-rich meal.

As for eating birds, I hate to see it happen but it does. I had an EE rooster when I was a kid that was a songbird slayer. I hated it when he did it, but he had a real penchant for killing any bird that went near his feeder.