Anyone know where I can get just ONE band for my duck? I'm releasing it in a public lake and I would like to know which one it is once it grows identical.
Not sure about the whole releasing thing, but you might want to post this in buy/sell/trade and change the header to reflect what you are looking for...
In many places it is against the law to release a domestic duck into the wild. They often have no survival skills and are easily killed by predators. Are you speaking of the baby you just hatched? It can't make oil yet and doesn't have mature feathering and would probably drown or chill and die if you put it out in the next month or two. If you don't want to raise it offer it to someone who will.
Often they starve out in the winter. They can't leave like true wild ducks and people mostly throw bread and scratch to them which just fills their bellies and that is about it. We have a pond near us where people have let waterfowl run free and it is a common sight in the winter to see geese and ducks starving or dead.
I too would worry about a hand raised or domestic duck being released. Without fear of people or natural survival skills, I'd worry it would get killed by a predator or starve. Buy sell and trade forum may be able to find you that one band though.
PLEASE. I wouldn't hatch the duck in the first place if I was that stupid. I'm not going to release it into the wild when it's a baby. I just want to know where I can get a band for the duck's leg so I can identify it from all the others when it's a mature duck. And, I'm releasing it into a huge lake with subdivisions fully surrounding it, so no predators except hawks.
It is probably illegal to release your duck at a public lake. Unless the duck is raised in a manner to be conditioned for release, it will would probably die. I think you have to have a special permit to release animals like that. Jean
The problem isn't predators, the problem is domestic ducks were not developed to survive in the wild. They have been genetically altered to fit human needs, and that includes the inability to migrate in the winter or feed itself properly. It is cruel to release a domestic duck, and it would be much wiser, and much more kind, to try to find it a home with someone who can care for it. My town has to routinely round up the domestic ducks from local ponds that people have released, and either find homes for them or have them euthanized. Alot of towns don't take the initiative to do this, so the ducks are left to beg people for insubstantial scraps and suffer. The wild ducks at ponds tend to ignore the visitors and the scraps of bread they throw, and they are not around in the winter. Ideally, those wild ducks should be the only types people see at city ponds, and hopefully, with enough education, this will one day be the case. Please rethink your decision to release the duck.
I think I read somewhere that you're talking about mallards . . . but even so, like Jean says, it would have had to have been conditioned for release, which, IMO, is not the simplest of processes. If you are, in fact, doing that, I apologize for my earlier assumptions.