Took our ducklings to my husbands 2nd grade class today

[CorralitosSunflower]

All the kids were great and got to come hold them in groups of 3. I was absolutely horrified with what I heard from the various adults who happened by

I had 5 seperate people including teachers and parents admit in various ways that they all got ducklings at some point and "released" them to the wild, proud of themselves like it was something I would relate or approve of!!!!! Just goes to show how uneducated people are. All you have to type into google is "is it ok to let domestic ducks go in the wild?" to get your answer. I was so very torn, I really wanted to tear into them about it (I am 7 months pregnant so maybe feeeling a little more fierce than usual) but at the same time it was in my husbands class, at his school with people who obviously didn't know any better..... I tried to tell people as approprietly as possible how ducks or ducklings who are raised by people should NEVER be let go. One quote by teacher "What are you gonna do with them?", me- "well, we are going to keep them" teacher (with big happy smile on face) "We had some this year but they just got so big, we let them go in Pinto Lake!"

 

[KinderKorner]

And people wonder why I'm not a people person.

 

[goosedragon]

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If you are going to tote ducklings to school, TEACH! you can pretend that you are teaching the kids and maybe get your message across to the so called adults at the same time.

 

[CorralitosSunflower]

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If you are going to tote ducklings to school, TEACH! you can pretend that you are teaching the kids and maybe get your message across to the so called adults at the same time.

I wish that I had the encounters prior to showing the kids them. I did teach what I knew about incubation, interesting facts, what the ducklings needed to grow up healthy, ect to the children but for whatever reason it didn't cross my mind at the time to say anything about letting them go in the wild. I guess I always assume that when people get a pet they get it to keep it. It was after the kids had started clearing out, parents were picking kids up and the afterschool program was starting when I had the many adults telling me about their experience with ducks. Saying how cute they are and how much they LOVE ducks and ducklings, and when they got big we just let them go like it was the most logical thing to do

I said what I could while trying to not get rude about it. Next time I will just need to invision THEM as the seconds graders I am teaching about ducks but in the moment I was caught off-gaurd. I think I will have my husband do some sort of follow up with the kids tomorrow to include that important fact, maybe then they can be the voice of responsibility when their parent wants to get a duckling. The teacher I did not sugar coat anything for though. I think she was a little shocked and hopefully went home feeling really bad about it...

 

[maralynn28]

RRRRgghhh! This irritates me! I took the ducklings to my son's kinder class and all went even better than I expected, I thought the duckies would be too shy but I gave all the kids (in small group of 4) peas to feed them and there was lots of giggling involved.

I would agree that with a 2nd grade class the kids are old enough to understand the message of responsibility with animals and that if you were to share the message, they would EAGERLY teach their parents also. I know my DD never hesitates to correct me! lol She's a 2nd grader too.

 

[chickboss]

LOL, kids can get away with teaching better than adults. We no longer take bread to the duck pond, and I've told the kids why. Well my four year old sees some people feeding the ducks bread last time we were there and she goes up to their little boy and takes the bag out of his hand (I was like OMG and making a bee line to get there) and proceeds to tell him and his parents why bread is bad for ducks. Well, it actually started a great conversation (of course I made her give the stunned little boy his bread back) and they were genuinly interested. I just wonder what would have happened if I had tried that approach. LOL.

 

[secretquail]

I'm sorry to be ignorant of this, I don't have any ducks yet... why can't you give bread to the ducks?

 

[Buff Hooligans]

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Me too. People are too many, and too dumb. That's why I didn't produce any of my own.

 

[quail kid1]

Well my mum toldm e that when she was little her mum bought her 3 ducklings, so she kept them and when they got big, her mum told her to release it to the lake nearby, and my mum said no because there are lots of foxes and dogs, so my mum searched the entire day for someone who had ducks to keep them, and the following day she found someone who was keeping ducks so she gave them happily to him

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

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Glad you would come here and ask the question instead of ignoring the topic and feeding bread anyways.

Bread for ducks is simply a filler, and has nearly no nutritional value for them. It's like getting full, but your bascially starving yourself of nutrition even though you have something in your stomach. That's why many domestic ducks at the lake where people feed them don't live a very long and healthy life. Those mainly rely on bread. Not to mention bread can in some cases kill ducks. Because ducks eat a lot in a single gulp it's possible for the bread to roll up in a hard ball while entering or sitting in the crop. Which can choke the duck. Most of the time that's uncommon, but why take the risk?