Fostering a baby duck and want to return it to the flock someday

[Trixie Martin]

We rescued a poorly doing ten hour old duckling from our duck nursery pen. He (no idea if it is a boy or girl yet) has some motor skills issues, but is rapidly improving. He is three days old now, and doing well. Of course, he thinks we are mommy. We want to return him to our very small flock of six adults and his seven siblings someday. My concern is that he will not adapt well to their language, habits, etc, and that they will not take him in. Do we need to do anything like "supervised playtime" with him? If so, how. The other ducks are normal-they don't want us within two feet of them. When should we start introducing him? When is safe for him to stay out unsupervised? We usually let the baby ducks out of the nursery pen at about four-five weeks, when they are large enough to avoid most smaller predators. We have TONS of questions, but we will start with these. Thank you so much.
Trixie-"mama duck"

 

[JadeComputerGal]

We rescued a poorly doing ten hour old duckling from our duck nursery pen. He (no idea if it is a boy or girl yet) has some motor skills issues, but is rapidly improving. He is three days old now, and doing well. Of course, he thinks we are mommy. We want to return him to our very small flock of six adults and his seven siblings someday. My concern is that he will not adapt well to their language, habits, etc, and that they will not take him in. Do we need to do anything like "supervised playtime" with him? If so, how. The other ducks are normal-they don't want us within two feet of them. When should we start introducing him? When is safe for him to stay out unsupervised? We usually let the baby ducks out of the nursery pen at about four-five weeks, when they are large enough to avoid most smaller predators. We have TONS of questions, but we will start with these. Thank you so much.
Trixie-"mama duck"

When you say your "nursery pen," do you mean a place where he was with his mother before you took him? If so, his mother will likely still know him. The communication between a duck and her ducklings begins well before birth, and that's one way a duck knows the ducklings she hatched, and vice versa.

It's somewhat too late into this to do it precisely right, but you'll probably still be okay. You need to keep human socialization with the duckling to a feeding/watering/bedding changing minimum. It will probably peep a lot since you've already been through the three day initial bonding period, but you need to start letting it understand who its real mother is if you're going to reintroduce it.

Reintroduction needs to start right now, even if you put it and its mother in some makeshift thing with a piece of hardware cloth or something like that separating them. That will allow you to see how they react to one another. Since it's early on, the mother might recognize him right away if she hatched him herself. You don't. however, want to assume that will be the case and initially put him down with her and nothing to separate them. If she doesn't recognize him, he will be in danger since she's still in mom mode protecting her other little ones. A full size duck can snap the neck of a duckling that size that it considers a threat faster than you can reach your hands back between them to stop it.

 

[Trixie Martin]

Thank you so much for your advice. There are two mama ducks in a large pen with a roof on part of it and wire on the other part. There are seven other ducklings. This one was being trampled when I pulled him out. He still doesn't drink right, and flips over backward when he does drink. I'm almost sure he wouldn't make it right now out there. Will it be ok to introduce him to the entire flock at about 4-5 weeks of age when I open the nursery, or will he be bullied to death? Our ducks are naturally much less aggressive than our chickens (in a separate area), but I still worry about bullying. I can take him out there daily and let him walk around next to the pen and "talk" to the nursery ducks and ducklings. Would that help?

 

[DucksAndGardens]

I had a pekin ducking that ended up with a concussion and a leg injury that I had to separate from the flock to make sure she didn't die. But what I did was every day for an hour or so I would take her out and put her near the flock inside a wire rabbit cage so the flock could still see and talk to her. That way, once she was better I could put her back in with the flock. They still did a little picking and pecking at her once she was out of the cage but nothing like when I introduced a new duck. Since they already knew her it was more like they just had to touch her since they couldn't do it through the wire. She was back in the flock in just a day or so after she was fully recovered.

 

[JadeComputerGal]

Thank you so much for your advice. There are two mama ducks in a large pen with a roof on part of it and wire on the other part. There are seven other ducklings. This one was being trampled when I pulled him out. He still doesn't drink right, and flips over backward when he does drink. I'm almost sure he wouldn't make it right now out there. Will it be ok to introduce him to the entire flock at about 4-5 weeks of age when I open the nursery, or will he be bullied to death? Our ducks are naturally much less aggressive than our chickens (in a separate area), but I still worry about bullying. I can take him out there daily and let him walk around next to the pen and "talk" to the nursery ducks and ducklings. Would that help?

It's very concerning when a duckling is still flipping backward at that age. Is it eating anything yet? Also, it sounds like it could use a supplement even if it is eating. Are you able to get anything like Gro-Gel or Nutri-Drench in your area? I hear that some feed stores sell one or both, but I have to order mine on the Internet. Since you really should start something right away, you can give one drop of Polyvisol (human infant vitamin liquid) about every 8 hours. The advantage of Polyvisol is that you can get it at any drug store and at most grocery stores.

I can't predict what will happen when he's added back to your flock, but it's going to help if he can see them and "talk" with them every day before that time. Since he was already several hours old when you took him, you might find that his mother seems to be losing her mind when you take him outside to socialize. It's actually a good sign if that happens, because it means she still knows that is her baby, and she doens't like you having him.

 

[Trixie Martin]

Update. He is six days old now, and running around the house fine. He has a head tilt, but is not circling. He still flips his head back to drink, but lays down to keep from flipping over backward. He is eating duck/chicken crumble like crazy, but not growing much. I suspect this is because the first two-three days were spent just surviving. We take him out to the duck yard. He stays very close to me, but doesn't seem to get stressed. We sit next to the nursery. The mama duck watches him but doesn't seem to get upset or stressed. She has ten other ducklings to care for right now. The other ducks come closer than they ever have, and investigate, but show no aggressive behavior. I've read other forums about fostering ducks and having them turn out ok, which is encouraging. I will try to find the supplements you suggested to help him grow. Thank you for your advice. Will keep you posted....

 

[Trixie Martin]

That sounds like an excellent idea! I think if he can hide around me, he's not going to adapt to them as well. Thanks for the tip!