Keep "wild" ducks from running away?

[hemixrawrs]

I bought two female muscovy ducks for my males two months ago and they disappeared two days later. After they left I sold off the males, now by some miraculous chance I found the two females in a creek half a mile from my house. I put them in my fenced area but they keep trying to leave back to the creek through holes in my fence. Is there anyway to make them stop trying to leave and bond with my other ducks?

 

[Amiga]

With ducks, my approach - and it works most of the time - is to observe them and see what their natural tendency is, then build an environment that works with their nature, not opposed to it.

The holes in the fence, for example, need to be fixed. It's not glamorous work (I will put fence stuff off if I can get away with it, myself), but it's really important.

Acht used to do me a favor when she was very young. At that time, there was not much fence, and I used temporary fence quite a bit. Well, Acht would walk along the fence, one foot stepping on the ground, the other stepping up onto the bottom of the fence. When she found a place on the fence that would give, she'd slip under it and call out to the flock to follow her out. Jailbreak!!!

The favor is that she taught me that watching the ducks would show me what I needed to do.

 

[hemixrawrs]

With ducks, my approach - and it works most of the time - is to observe them and see what their natural tendency is, then build an environment that works with their nature, not opposed to it.

The holes in the fence, for example, need to be fixed.  It's not glamorous work (I will put fence stuff off if I can get away with it, myself), but it's really important.

Acht used to do me a favor when she was very young.  At that time, there was not much fence, and I used temporary fence quite a bit.  Well, Acht would walk along the fence, one foot stepping on the ground, the other stepping up onto the bottom of the fence.  When she found a place on the fence that would give, she'd slip under it and call out to the flock to follow her out.  Jailbreak!!!

The favor is that she taught me that watching the ducks would show me what I needed to do.

3 acres of fence is a lot to watch them find holes in

for the time being they're in my rabbit fence