Neighbors ducks coming over on my property...

[MastrangeloFamily]

Okay, shy person here who hates any conflict. We have a large 1.7 acre property. We free range our chickens and they stay on it. We have a 8 week old duck and 3 5 week old ducklings. Our neighbors ducks were coming over to socialize through our ducklings wire run. They were eating their scrap food and I didn't mind. We are now free ranging our ducks, we have a huge beautiful pond for them. Our neighbors 3 ducks are going out of their way to come over and mate with our 8 week old female. They chase our tiny ducklings around and they cower in fear and then mate with Ava our 8 week older. I have chased them away from our ducks all day long. Every 5m. This is getting out of hand. My husband said to just put our ducklings back in the run and keep them there. We are in a small town and do not want conflict yet I don't think that it's right that we can't let our ducklings hang out in our own pond!! Help!

 

[sourland]

First step should be protecting your birds. Your 8 week old female should not be mated by older drakes. If there are multiple drakes gang breeding her, they can injure or even drown her inadvertently. Pen your ducks, talk to your neighbors and/or put up a fence between the properties. "Good fences make for good neighbors."

 

[MastrangeloFamily]

First step should be protecting your birds. Your 8 week old female should not be mated by older drakes. If there are multiple drakes gang breeding her, they can injure or even drown her inadvertently. Pen your ducks, talk to your neighbors and/or put up a fence between the properties. "Good fences make for good neighbors."

I wish we could put up a fence. The problem is that we live in the mountains surrounded by streams and forest. There is no way to fence in everything.

 

[Isadora]

It doesn't have to be a confrontational conversation. It is very dangerous for older drakes to be mating with your 8-week-old, which your neighbors may not know. Do you know if your neighbors are aware their ducks are coming on your property? They might not even know.

 

[Yardmom]

Depending on the type of ducks the fence would only need to be a couple feet high. It might only need to be on the side the ducks are coming from.

 

[3KillerBs]

It is your neighbor's absolute responsibility to keep their animals on their own land.

Avoiding conflict should not mean allowing them to run roughshod over you and take advantage of your good nature -- that kind of thing ALWAYS escalates to them taking greater and greater advantage of you.

Electric fence, wire or netting, is excellent for fencing difficult terrain.

 

[Salixx]

If you don't want to confront the neighbors then a fence is your only other option.

Unless you want to eliminate the problem birds and blame it on a pack of coyotes if they ask questions (this is mostly sarcasm). You could probably also call animal control if you don't want to deal with them yourself.

Ideally, however, you could calmly let them know that the birds are coming onto your property and harassing your birds to the point of injury. I hope that it's more that they don't know it's a problem since you previously let them come over without complaint and that they will take action once they know it's a problem. If they don't comply, then you're back to fence (or elimination).

 

[MastrangeloFamily]

They do know that their ducks are coming over and mating our ducks. Their daughter told me so and thought it was funny. I'm going to make my husband go talk to them as he is more personable. For now we have been chasing them away everytime we see them. I think the ducks are starting to get the picture. Maybe.

 

[3KillerBs]

They do know that their ducks are coming over and mating our ducks. Their daughter told me so and thought it was funny. I'm going to make my husband go talk to them as he is more personable. For now we have been chasing them away everytime we see them. I think the ducks are starting to get the picture. Maybe.

Then they are taking advantage of you and that kind of behavior will surely increase over time if you don't act to stop it.

I hope that your husband is persuasive.

 

[Isadora]

Then they are taking advantage of you

Not necessarily knowingly, though. Some people are clueless when it comes to boundaries and don't realize it's a problem.