First-time duck owner... tips?

[rainplace]

Did you have large hatches? I didn't hatch any of mine but the larger group of babies I had ordered were more wild than my group of two. The two still love to be around me.

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

No, not really (I don't think?) We hatched 5 silver Appleyards and 6 runners.

 

[tia]

The first year I used the incubator in the classroom we just had two eggs and one hatched. It was a khaki Campbell. It imprinted on me and when I put it down it followed me around the classroom. When I held it - it would snuggle under my jacket and go to sleep. It would make a fuss when I walked out of the room, so I would let it set in a box on my desk and sometimes take it with me when I walked down to the office. When it went home with the person that gave me the eggs it had a hard time fitting in with the ducks for a while. It wanted to be in the house with the people.

Tia

 

[rainplace]

Quote:
I'm new to ducks so anything I say is based on limited experience.

That's 11 ducks! All it takes is one or two to be scared and everyone else gets scared too. They are prey animals and it pays off for them to be scared of potential threats. My first set of ducklings consisted of 4 3 day olds. One little duckling, Crackers, really liked me and wasn't scared in the slightest. The other three had different thoughts. They thought I was the butcher. Crackers always wanted to be near me and would always try to follow me around the yard. The other ducklings would get extremely agitated if Crackers followed me. They would peep their little heads off as soon as she got a few feet away from them. Crackers would stop, look back at her friends, then look back to me and start peeping too. She'd take a few more steps peeping all the while, but she would finally turn the other way and head back to the flock.

My second set had only two. A gosling and duckling. It was easier to handle them because I could put them in my lap and only have to contain the two of them instead of four of them. The gosling, Ranaya, imprinted on me, and the runner, Molly, imprinted on Ranaya. So I ended up with two little ones that were never afraid of me. I would walk them through the house and through the yard when they were just a few days old, and when I put them away to go to work, they cried. Ranaya was the worst.

Anyway, I think it has to do with the size of the flock. It could happen that as I increase the size of my flock, I'll find this not to hold true, but I think that Cherlyn will find that hatching a single duck will mean she has a wonderful experience as a duck mother.

Go go, Cherlyn!

 

[Cherlyn]

Quote:
I'm new to ducks so anything I say is based on limited experience.

That's 11 ducks! All it takes is one or two to be scared and everyone else gets scared too. They are prey animals and it pays off for them to be scared of potential threats. My first set of ducklings consisted of 4 3 day olds. One little duckling, Crackers, really liked me and wasn't scared in the slightest. The other three had different thoughts. They thought I was the butcher. Crackers always wanted to be near me and would always try to follow me around the yard. The other ducklings would get extremely agitated if Crackers followed me. They would peep their little heads off as soon as she got a few feet away from them. Crackers would stop, look back at her friends, then look back to me and start peeping too. She'd take a few more steps peeping all the while, but she would finally turn the other way and head back to the flock.

My second set had only two. A gosling and duckling. It was easier to handle them because I could put them in my lap and only have to contain the two of them instead of four of them. The gosling, Ranaya, imprinted on me, and the runner, Molly, imprinted on Ranaya. So I ended up with two little ones that were never afraid of me. I would walk them through the house and through the yard when they were just a few days old, and when I put them away to go to work, they cried. Ranaya was the worst.

Anyway, I think it has to do with the size of the flock. It could happen that as I increase the size of my flock, I'll find this not to hold true, but I think that Cherlyn will find that hatching a single duck will mean she has a wonderful experience as a duck mother.

Go go, Cherlyn!

YEAH!

Thanks for the words of encouragement - I am so excited to have a little duckling around, and then a duck as she/he grows! We will get him/her a mate as soon as we know the gender.

~Cherlyn