- Jun 25, 2014
- 6
- 0
- 7
Hello,
My name is Jeff (JC). I have 5 Peking Ducks that my better half bought at Tractor Supply in early March because they were cute. Her intentions were to raise them and release them into the large community pond across the street. They were attacked by unknown around early April, and 1 of the 5 came up missing and 2 of the remaining 4 were bloody with lacerations -- This is when they became my ducks. We built them a nice pen for protection, kept a 36" kiddie pool full of fresh water 24/7, they were/are spoiled rotten. We searched the entire area for the missing duck, with signs of duckling feathers here and there. On Mothers Day we got talking with a teen that was fishing at the pond, he mentioned he had a Peking duck come into their garage all bloody and near death, and they had been nursing it back to health (for about 17 days). He brought it over to our 4 ducks and you could tell right away it was our missing duck -- you could feel the excitement among them all. It was a great Mother's day gift for my better half, she had tears in her eyes. The 5th duck has a permanently broken wing tip that angles outward, but it looks normal when he flaps it.
I am not a fowl farmer by any means, but I am technical and keep Google at my finger tips. The 5 ducks have grown and have mostly all adult feathers; and are slowly becoming part of the wild fowl community though they refuse to go into the pond. By wild fowl community (not including my ducks), there are 2 Canadian geese families (3 goslings each), 1 Muscovy duck, 1 adult Pekin Duck couple and an unidentified black duck that is older than the rest; he is the 3rd wheel to the Peking couple. There is a larger pond about 1/8th mile away with about 20-30 Canadian geese that often raid our pond, we call them the "South Pond Gang." We chase them off when we can, they are mean to all of the fowl in our pond.
Our ducks are no longer kept in a pen, but they have a 8' x 14" kiddie pool on our car port. We spend time with them 4-5 times minimum a day and occasionally try to walk them to the pond. They seem to want no part of the pond, we suspect it was the wild adult male Peking that attacked them before; we've seen him and the black duck do it again since -- but just trying to mate. We have learned that out of our 5 Pekings, 1 is a female. Our 5 are inseparable, but the 4 male so far will not defend the female when the 2 male "pond ducks" attack to mate.
So there/here we are. I fear we have spoiled them too much for them to ever "move out" to the pond across the street; I hope I am wrong. I'm addicted to these ducks and have come to love each of their individual personalities -- so I have a weak hand when it comes to easing them into the wild scene.
Thanks for reading and I apologize for the long winded story. I never thought I'd be raising ducks, but now I can't stop.
JC
My name is Jeff (JC). I have 5 Peking Ducks that my better half bought at Tractor Supply in early March because they were cute. Her intentions were to raise them and release them into the large community pond across the street. They were attacked by unknown around early April, and 1 of the 5 came up missing and 2 of the remaining 4 were bloody with lacerations -- This is when they became my ducks. We built them a nice pen for protection, kept a 36" kiddie pool full of fresh water 24/7, they were/are spoiled rotten. We searched the entire area for the missing duck, with signs of duckling feathers here and there. On Mothers Day we got talking with a teen that was fishing at the pond, he mentioned he had a Peking duck come into their garage all bloody and near death, and they had been nursing it back to health (for about 17 days). He brought it over to our 4 ducks and you could tell right away it was our missing duck -- you could feel the excitement among them all. It was a great Mother's day gift for my better half, she had tears in her eyes. The 5th duck has a permanently broken wing tip that angles outward, but it looks normal when he flaps it.
I am not a fowl farmer by any means, but I am technical and keep Google at my finger tips. The 5 ducks have grown and have mostly all adult feathers; and are slowly becoming part of the wild fowl community though they refuse to go into the pond. By wild fowl community (not including my ducks), there are 2 Canadian geese families (3 goslings each), 1 Muscovy duck, 1 adult Pekin Duck couple and an unidentified black duck that is older than the rest; he is the 3rd wheel to the Peking couple. There is a larger pond about 1/8th mile away with about 20-30 Canadian geese that often raid our pond, we call them the "South Pond Gang." We chase them off when we can, they are mean to all of the fowl in our pond.
Our ducks are no longer kept in a pen, but they have a 8' x 14" kiddie pool on our car port. We spend time with them 4-5 times minimum a day and occasionally try to walk them to the pond. They seem to want no part of the pond, we suspect it was the wild adult male Peking that attacked them before; we've seen him and the black duck do it again since -- but just trying to mate. We have learned that out of our 5 Pekings, 1 is a female. Our 5 are inseparable, but the 4 male so far will not defend the female when the 2 male "pond ducks" attack to mate.
So there/here we are. I fear we have spoiled them too much for them to ever "move out" to the pond across the street; I hope I am wrong. I'm addicted to these ducks and have come to love each of their individual personalities -- so I have a weak hand when it comes to easing them into the wild scene.
Thanks for reading and I apologize for the long winded story. I never thought I'd be raising ducks, but now I can't stop.
JC
and Welcome To BYC! Sounds like you are having fun with your ducks! You might want to check out the Ducks forum... you probably need to consider making arrangements to separate them eventually, you are going to have problems with a 1 female to 4 male ratio when they mature. 
