*Graphic - What killed our ducks?

[ridley_roo_roo]

Hello All,

New here and joined for the sole purpose of figuring out what the heck happened to our 2 ducks that were severely injured and had to be put down this weekend. I'm attaching photos of the only wounds found, but they had to be put down because of what we think was more internal injuries. They couldn't walk or move at all, it was very heartbreaking to have to put these guys down.

We're located in NE Ohio. We have eagles, hawks, owls, fox, mink, coyote, raccoons and possums. That's about it when it comes to predators.

The pond they live on in the warm weather is fenced in with a 4 foot fence, their wings were recently clipped so we know they did not fly out. Both were found outside the fence, we think something either carried them out or spooked them so bad they tried to fly out and didn't get too far.

Our 4 dogs were outside the morning we found them, but all of these dogs have been with the ducks from day one and have never shown aggression or even tried chasing them. I don't think it was the dogs, but I'm not ruling them out. The mud on the one duck makes me think one of the dogs could have pawed at it - this wouldn't be unusual for my English Shepherd who checks everything with her paws.

This is the main reason I'd like feedback on what these wounds look like to others - if my dogs are unsafe around the ducks I will make sure they're not near future ones. It would just be so surprising considering all the dogs have been exposed to ducks for a couple years now.

Any feedback on what these wounds look like is greatly appreciated. We'll be getting decoys and putting in netting before we get more.

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

I'm not really good at guessing predators (thats why I tend to shy away from these threads) but I wanted to ask, what's your property like?

We have a family friend who lost 23 chickens in about a 2 hour span of her going shopping. Her property isn't fenced, two neighbor dogs from down the road, off leash just wandered up and killed 23 of her birds, spooking the ones who were in a pen out, chasing her goats, left a giant mess... Any chance someone else's dogs could have gotten to your ducks?

I'm not saying it looks like a dog attack, I don't know, I generally trust people when they say their dogs aren't bad. There is exceptions, like I know 2/3 of our dogs are great around the birds, but if our third dog starts chasing them, the other two will join in. Did you see any sort of foot prints in and around the pond?

 

[cmom]

So sorry for your loss. It's just a guess. It could have been most any predator. The only way to know for sure is to possibly get it on a game camera. I have several on my property and see predators quite regularly on at least one of the cameras and sometimes more. Many predators will lurk and look for an opportunity fox, coyotes, bobcat, most ground predators and will make the rounds when they know they have seen the birds out and again look for an opportunity. Most predators except some aerial predators, lurk at night, but will come out during the day if your birds were discovered in passing. Good luck...