The rewards of hand raising ducks :)

[ktduck]

A few days ago I purchased 3 Buff Orpington ducks of about 6 months old. I have 2 beautiful khaki campbell drakes of the same age, which i have hand raised.

These new girls, and while lovely, are not used to people, and run away when i even flinch a muscle in their direction. It has made me realise what a truely special relationship I have with my boys, and I now feel really really lucky to have that, with a normally wild animal. They are just such beautiful little creatures, I love how they follow me around, sit with me, lean their little heads on my lap while i'm outside reading.

I am so glad to have been reminded of this lovely relationship, and I just wanted to share, and maybe hear some stories of others.

Katie

 

[anniele27]

I have 3 Indian runners about a month old and they are the sweetest! They will follow me in a line and peep at the back door when I go inside! I was told that they are a skittish unfriendly breed but out of all 15 ducks I own these three are the calmest and nicest! So I do definitely think hand raising them from babies makes a huge difference!

Here they are sleeping in their pool! The dark brown one is Dipsy. The one with the crest is Daisy and the fawn one is Dora!

 

[Amiga]

There may be skittish runners, but they are not in our duck yard!!!

Glad yours are as sweet as ours (c:

 

[ktduck]

I have 3 Indian runners about a month old and they are the sweetest! They will follow me in a line and peep at the back door when I go inside! I was told that they are a skittish unfriendly breed but out of all 15 ducks I own these three are the calmest and nicest! So I do definitely think hand raising them from babies makes a huge difference!


Here they are sleeping in their pool! The dark brown one is Dipsy. The one with the crest is Daisy and the fawn one is Dora!

Gorgeous! Lucky you

 

[ducksanddoxies]

Our black Swedish has potential to be that sweet. He will at least eat out of my hand, but our Pekin, Diva is just that a diva. When she's unhappy e'rrybody knows about it!

 

[SampyArctica]

I never realised exactly how easy it is to pick up my Muscovy drake until I started doing some volunteer work in a Wildlife Hospital and had to handle other Muscovies there (still get domestic strays in), and although I did get on the good side of one drake (with food!), most of them want nothing at all to do with you. I'm sure being injured in a strange place, with strange people handling you for weighing and medication most certainly doesn't help either but I didn't realise exactly how difficult some scovies could be when being picked up, even when wrapped in a towel. My boy has even started climbing into my lap (forcibly, a couple of times...), demanding cuddles!