My ducks are too NOISY!!

[daydreamer92]

Ducks are just noisy. Noisy and dirty and horny. We have one indoor duck who can get VERY noisy and it's just her alone. We have another 15 or so in the yard and three geese -- they are always making noise unless they are sleeping/sleepy. They chatter when they walk, when they eat, when they see something, when they drink, when they wander. Unlike roosters, ducks go on about things all the time.

I'm sure the noise varies from breed to breed and duck to duck, but noise is just ducks being ducks, just like making a mess around the waterer is.

It may not be the suggestion you want to hear, but I'd rehome them to a place where their natural noise isn't too much for the surroundings.

 

[KatGold]

Exsqueeze me? Did you say, "indoor" duck?

 

[bayyjayy]

I have a mallard/call cross who is the NOISIEST of the all, and she also goes on LONGER than the rest. My ducks are all noisy, though. They quack at all hours. I have been up since 5:15 and I have heard them many times this morning. I have Cayugas, Anconas, Khaki, Buff, and my mallard/call cross, and they are allllll noisy, and I have six boys out there to boot, so my boys definitely don't do their job if they are suppose to help keep the girls quiet.

I have asked a few neighbors if they are bothersome, and none have ever said they even hear them. When I had my pekins, I asked the neighbor right next to me if they bothered them, and they said they never even heard them and THEY were noisy. But, the parents bedrooms are in the front of their house and my ducks are in the back. But, not a single neighbor has said yes.

 

[aoxa]

Quote:
My muscovy just peeps

It's adorable. They definitely are not loud at all. My mixed breed duck quacks, but not often.

They should have a baby pool to play in.

 

[mominoz]

It's the call duck in them , I have some mini-ducks, appleyards and overbergs and they are the noisiest of my ducks!!1 I also have runners and Saxonies and Hookbills. My Runners are the quietest.Only make a sound when it's feeding time, Oh yeah, they all make a racket if it is morning or evening when I feed them if I open my back door! But if I am just walking around or working they are quiet. I put up doubled sunscreen around 2 sides of their day yard as a screen for the neighbors driving on the road below, and it keeps them quieter if they don't see predators, etc.
If you want quiet ducks, get a couple drakes (boys), they don't quack, just a raspy sound. Once in a while a saxony can call loudly (it's this one female!) will make a racket, but it's the mini-s that are the loudest!

 

[ozzymagick]

Ducks are very social and they want attention all the time ... so maybe your indoor duck is lonely

 

[BladeDuck]

I am not of the opinion that nothing can be done to reduce duck noise. I do think some individual ducks are more noisy than others though. I have had ducks for 2 years now and I have sold a couple of the worst noise offenders and worked with the rest. For the first 1.5 years I lived in townhome with a small 20 x 25 yard/patio. It was small and I had really close neighbors. Like I said, I sold the worst noise offenders and didn't keep any males (my purpose was eating eggs). For the first 5-6 months of my first ducklings I would lock them in a small coup at night, something that would contain a lot of noise. I wouldn't let them out till 8am. Keeping them in a dark coup was impossible with the rising sun so when I integrated a small light in the coup that would come on at 5am it actually helped them be less stimulated by the early morning sun and early go-to-workers.

As long as they have FRESH water and food, somewhere to nap, they were pretty content and quacked minimally during the day. They were most noisy when I went out to feed them in the morning which is why I waited as long as possible to do that.

I did experiment some with nutrition. I felt like they were more noisy on the higher protein gamebird feed than on a chicken layer feed. I also felt like they were more content when I started soaking their mash the night before. Perhaps because their bodies were absorbing more nutritents with that method, I also went through less feed on this method. I also had to stop myself from giving them treats randomly because they began to think my presence represented a treat and would quack up a storm anytime they saw me. All food for the day now goes in the food bowl in the morning. I save scraps from meals to give them in the morning. Right now I'm switching to fodder feeding and am adding a tablespoon of pastured lard to the fodder every morning. I do think they have a saturated fat need not supplied in commercial layer mixes. Think about it, wild ducks rummage through the mud eating grubs. Grubs = saturated fat. An over crowded pond is a noisy one, I think because of nutrient sources not available.

With that visual presence causing the noise, anytime they would hear us in the kitchen they'd start quacking away. This is when I had to re-haul my snack giving and fix the problem. It took a lot of work but if they started quacking more with my presence, I would put them int he coup. Let them out again when they were calm. Put them back in when they were crazy again. Repeat. Repeat. x100. It really started to work.

I also do think they go through phases. I have another set of ducklings now that are 13 weeks old now and I'm about to pull my hair out. I remember this was about the same time I was starting to re-think this whole duck ownership thing with my first ducklings. Right now I have 6 of the young ones, and 2 ducks are the worst offenders. I am trying to determine if I can work with them or not.

Ducks are not like dogs with training but I think they can be trained somewhat. Just like they can expect food at 8am and put themselves to bed on their own and learn that my presence means snacks, I think they can also learn that excessive jabbering means coup time which is not something they want in the middle of the day.

I did try out muscovies for a a few months but they didn't do well in the small quarters and were aggressive with the smaller ducks. I also didn't like how big their eggs were, the largeness was a little weird for me.I also think the whites texture is a bit different on a scovy. Maybe that was just the size of the egg. I would be interested in a mule duck (mallard gene x muscovy) that laid but some of them don't lay at all.

Ducks DO quack. The quiet jabbering is acceptable at my house. The "WHA! WHA! WHA!" is not.

ETA: I'm just seeing this is a super old thread! hah, well anyway. There's my novel on duck noise.

 

[goats rule 101]

I have rouens and a mallard all of which are drakes and thet are actually very quiet. They are shut up in a small pen at night but during the day thay have free range of my fenced in yard. When out of the pen they do as they please and I never hear a peep. Maybe if you gave them more room or something like weeds for them to forage they would be quieter. I know my ducks certainly love sticking their bills into everything, I left the door open once because I was carrying things in and out and they walked right in like they owned the place! I came back in and closed the door and stepped in duck poop. I knew something was up and found them all the way upstairs in the kitchen! Ducks really are fun though and I think you should try your best to be able to keep them. Good luck!

 

[RainForestBird]

I have two call ducks, a Muscovy and 4 Anconas. The Anconas are the quiet ones. The only make noise when I am moving them and/or they are scared. They do not like to be picked up and moved to their pen, they prefer to exit the run and go into the pen themselves without me touching them. Also, the girls are the ones that make the noise, not the drakes. The call ducks are really bad. They quack whenever I open my front door regardless of the time. It's 3 am and my incubator was beeping in my RV. So I had to go out the front door and I guess they can hear me, because I cover their run at night with a heavy duty tarp so they can't see anything. I am really, really quiet. But they know. The Muscovy just coos, and never makes a fuss over anything. But she does not like me to pick her up, and she doesn't like to go in at night. Sometimes I have to leave her out because I can't catch her and she can fly. I am so worried someone behind my property is going to complain to the homeowner's association. They are nice little ducks otherwise, very cute. But I think they will have to go. No eggs either, even with extra light, and they get layer pellets mixed with flock builder plus calcium.

 

[Mkallas1]

Having the same noise issue and panicking trying to rehome them. Literally making my self sick over it.