We bought some feeder fish today and put them in our large black stock tank for the ducks. Sorry fish lovers.
When the ducklings got in the water they swam and splashed normally at first. It took awhile for one to spot a fish, it gobbled it right down and than started looking in ernest. The waters deep enough they can't see the bottom after five poop minutes or touch the bottom. The duckling, started swimming strangely, almost looking as if it was struggling to stay afloat. Pumping its legs in an exaggerated way. Thinking it was having problems staying afloat, I took it out. After giving me a horribly dirty look it ran right back up the ramp and dove back in. Started doing the jogging in the water again. Lo and behold a fish swirled up in snatching range and and the duckling nailed it. The other ducklings by now had seen the fish and were actively hunting, at least half were also doing the water jogging. Think Suncity water arobics class. I was staring at them and wondering what the heck they were doing, when it hit me. If I was a duck in shallow muddy water, stomping my feet on the muddy bottom or water jogging would stir up the muck, a good way flush out all sorts of aquatic goodies like frogs, tadpoles, minnows.... I need to get a video of it and see what you think. I wonder if maybe your Daisy duck stomp for treat dance might be tied to this food getting behavior. Only her fish, were goldfish crackers. But how could you use this to train Dandelion to dance?
No idea. Daisy was her own special snowflake I'm guessing.
