Putting your ducks to bed

[Lugh]

Can't fence it in since I share the waterfront with a bunch of other properties, but I had thought of a floating duck platform that they might use. Are there any treats that I might only give them at night that are absolutely delicious to them?

PS: 2 raccoons captured and delivered to the Everglades. 4 left.

 

[Quailsong]

Can't fence it in since I share the waterfront with a bunch of other properties, but I had thought of a floating duck platform that they might use. Are there any treats that I might only give them at night that are absolutely delicious to them?

PS: 2 raccoons captured and delivered to the Everglades. 4 left.

Maybe try locking them up for a couple weeks so they know where home really is. It seems to work well for chickens.

Also, someone linked this earlier: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/242460/the-ultimate-list-of-duck-treats-and-supplements

 

[TLWR]

Mine were hit and miss. They'd go a while putting themselves to bed and other times just hang out in the pond.
Since the new ones were added, I used peas to get them to head to bed, so now they wait on me for peas.

Currently, we are putting them to bed about 45 mins early until we figure out and catch/dispose of whatever is trying to eat them at dusk.


I kind of wish I had an auto pea dispenser.
Until this unknown critter, we didn't have to worry about being home before dark to put the ducks and chickens to bed (chickens involves closing their doors).

 

[JekkaLynn]

Last night we herded our new ducks into their new house and closed it up then let them loose again this morning. This afternoon it was raining and they tried to hide under my sons Exersaucer so I herded the new ducks and my neighbors duck who was visiting into the duck house and left it open. Tonight we got home after it was dark and found them all snuggled up in their house. Smart little duckies.

 

[Quailsong]

Jekka, what are you using to herd them?

I've found a few soft sticks (or thin bamboo poles) work really well as guides. You don't even need to touch them with it, but sometimes the rowdy ones get the side gently pressed against their necks to direct them back to where I want them to go. Also my biggest tip, if you can focus on the loudest/leader then the others will often follow that one.

 

[JekkaLynn]

Yeah Quailsong I use bamboo too. They all wanted to follow Howard even though before that they either avoided or attacked him.

 

[Quailsong]

Yeah Quailsong I use bamboo too. They all wanted to follow Howard even though before that they either avoided or attacked him.

Such fickle duckies.

 

[Lugh]

Lately I've just been grabbing them and putting them in their run myself at dusk. My quandary though is that I am going away this weekend for Saturday and Sunday and have to choose between leaving them in the run all day and having a friend bring them food and water or just letting them free range all weekend and not have them locked up at night. I don't know what to do.

They will be safe if I lock them up, but they will also be very, very unhappy. Like, extremely.

 

[Eluria]

They will be safe if I lock them up, but they will also be very, very unhappy. Like, extremely.

With my kids, I always say that if I have to choose between having them safe and having them happy, I will choose safe every time. Then at least they will live long enough to be mad at me. I think I would do that with my ducks, too. But probably it also depends on how old they are, and more importantly whether you have any predators around.

 

[Lugh]

I just hope they have short memories (which I believe they do). There is a family of raccoons around that I am slowly but surely relocating to the Everglades, but there are still two of them left. My babies are four months old and have been accepted by the flock, but they can tend to wander off sometimes.