Im new, and have some muskovy questions!

[mistat313]

Hello everyone, I recently moved into a new townhouse with a beautiful pond out back. I have quite a few muskovy ducks, as well as some mallard and also some that are a mixture of the two species. My wife and I love animals and we feed the ducks that live in the pond. I will go ahead and put this out there right now, but my knowledge of ducks is very limited as far as terminology and their behaviors, so please bare with me.

Over the past few months since we moved in a few of the female muskovy ducks have had babies. My wife loves feeding them and seeing them swim around with the mother. The issue, and main reason I joined this forum is to find out if there are any answers as to why these ducklings go missing or die. We have literally found a duckling on our patio that could not walk or see! We felt so bad that it would not make it in the wild that we created a habitat in a box for it to try and nurture it back to health. We fed it and gave it water and a little swimming hole, and eventually the duck went back to normal. After reuniting the duckling with its very concerned mother, the duckling developed the same issues and we found it on our patio dead one evening. There are also ducklings that just go missing, and I assume are dying! There has been three mothers with different litters of babies and none of the babies have survived. There has been an average 13-15 ducklings per litter.

I am looking for ways to resolve this issue and to help keep the ducklings alive! Any help is greatly appreciated! Also, if I missed a bit of information please ask, as I may not have been very thorough describing the living situation they are in. Thanks in advance!

 

[Orca5094]

I'm assuming these are wild ducks and not your own pets?

Most wild ducklings don't make it, that's an unfortunate fact of life. That's why ducks have so many ducklings in the first place. Could there be turtles in that pond? They tend to take alot of ducklings, as well as other aerial and land predators (hawks, foxes, etc). If there is anything even remotely wrong with a duckling (small leg/foot problem, injury, sickness, etc), it just won't be able to survive and keep up with it's family and will be left behind. It's a pretty cold world out there for ducklings in the wild. I feel so bad when I see hens with fewer and fewer ducklings following behind them each day as well. :/

 

[Going Quackers]

It's almost sounding like nutrient deficiency. Perhaps they are not able to get what the young need to thrive. Yes, mortality rates are high in the wild, likely why Muscovy have larger clutches... an average is 8 and goes from there.

If you wanted you could feed a duck feed, or chicken to them, no bread... that is useless and just fills the bird up so they don't eat nutritional food.

I will give you this treat chart for other ideas for things ... is the water contaminated in anyway? that could also lead to deaths.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/242460/the-ultimate-list-of-duck-treats-and-supplements

I raise Muscovy myself and usually *knock on wood* after they hatch mine thrive, that said i control the environment and the food.