- Jun 5, 2014
- 3
- 1
- 7
I have a beautiful flock of Welsh Harlequins (10 weeks old, 1 male, 9 female) that won't come back to their duck house from the pond anymore - bad duckies! They have predator proof duck house and yard where they stayed when they were little. Around about when they were 5 weeks old, we started letting them go swimming on the natural pond on our property (about 30 feet away down a dirt road). They LOVE it - they're ducks after all. At first, we could get them to come back to their duck house with a tasty trail of treats (romaine lettuce appears to be their favorite). Gradually, they realized what was going on and more and more of them refused to get out of the water. At first that wasn't a big deal since if we could get half the flock back to their house, the rest would follow eventually. But now we can't even get that anymore. Last night my husband spent 2 hours in the dark chasing ducks in the pond on a paddle boat because nothing he could do would get them home. I was finally able to get them back to their house in the morning (and the coyotes thankfully didn't get them). I'd appreciate any advice on how to train ducks to reliably come in off the water and go back to their house at night. Thanks!