Unexpected New Duck Mom. Help!

[thumper650]

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Your house looks fun!!! My ducks are also afraid of their "big" pool at first. I throw, well, toss them in and they love it! It may take him some time to get nice and greasy.

 

[LadyHawk_2006]

He/she is beautiful and looks 100% better that those first pics. I want to say if this is a drake you’ll begin to see some changes in temperament he may start getting a little aggressive, might want to try mating the girls and you an dh too. But there are ways to teach him to behave himself. Just for now enjoy him. But I didn’t want you to freak out if you noticed him getting a little weird lol. Most of us who have drakes love them dearly but know we have to train them or get rid of them and I know you don’t want to do that to him. There are members on here who have drakes and we all can help with this. @thumper650 has mainly drakes he’ll def be one who can help. I have 3 drakes. Others too. Thanks for keeping us updated. Looks like your girls are happy with him.

Ooh, yikes! That is one thing that I have not heard about drakes before now! I didn't think they were trainable, per se. How exactly do you train a duck to not be "amorous"?

 

[LadyHawk_2006]

Your house looks fun!!! My ducks are also afraid of their "big" pool at first. I throw, well, toss them in and they love it! It may take him some time to get nice and greasy.

When he preens after a bath, I keep telling him not to neglect his uropygial gland

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

I should have taken a pic of him before he poo'ed the water all nasty, but he didn't seem to care. He still seems to get waterlogged faster than I would expect, but he also seems to be grooming better. When I first picked him up, he hadn't seemed to have preened himself for a while. It's really hard, not knowing anything about his background. He seemed both attracted to and terrified of the lake where we found him. He wanted to go in, but just couldn't bring himself to do it, so when I started giving him baths, I just filled it so it went up to his belly, but today I filled it all the way up and he was paddling around like a champ!

ETA: Wow, I use the word "seems" a lot. I should work on that. Where's my thesaurus? ROFL
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most of us would think this is clean clean water. Wait till he gets a pool outside. All my ducks are sooo excited to get a clean pool they can barely wait to get in before letting fly the poop.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Ooh, yikes! That is one thing that I have not heard about drakes before now! I didn't think they were trainable, per se. How exactly do you train a duck to not be "amorous"?

With my Muscovy drake and only this one because I raised him inside since his mom rejected him thought when he turned 4 months I would make a nice female for himself. I had his daddy a rescue and had never had any trouble with him but Opie was young and didn’t have any girls but me. So he would try and climb my leg or arm fly up on my back I was so surprised I came on here for help I was told to treat him like another drake would when he comes after me you push them down onto their bellies and put one hand behind the head neck to keep them from turning around an nipping and the other hand at base of tail where body meets. You keep him down until he quits fighting to get up once he stops you let him up if he starts again you just keep doing it till he walks off finally. You may not have any problems out of him since you didn’t raise him from a duckling so please don’t worry about this since it may not even happen. I also went an got him 3 girls of his very own which helped a lot. He will be 9 yrs old June 2

 

[MIDuckLady]

Things I noticed about his bath... Yesterday his eye was all watery and I thought it was damaged, but after his bath today, it looks perfect. No damage, no cloudiness. It's clear and round. I was surprised that he got waterlogged so fast, and I'm still wondering when he was ever actually in water. I'm in Rhode Island, the lake he was near is half frozen over, so if he had gone in there, he would have been in trouble. He's shivering right now, so he's next to the radiator on some warm towels.

He also seems to be a lap duck. He seems to enjoy sitting on us, doesn't mind gentle hugs and pets, and even likes my daughters (ages 7 and 9) and will sit on them, too. He was making happy sounds when I was holding him wrapped in a towelView attachment 2016041

He is one very lucky duck to have found a home with your family.

 

[Miss Lydia]

How's River doing?

 

[LadyHawk_2006]

How's River doing?

She (I'm going with "she" now, after watching Youtube videos and hearing male vs female voices) has claimed me She was preening on my lap after her bath, then clambered up to my shoulder and hunkered down like she's done it every day for her whole life

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

You are so lucky to find her and she is lucky to find you.

 

[MIDuckLady]

She (I'm going with "she" now, after watching Youtube videos and hearing male vs female voices) has claimed me She was preening on my lap after her bath, then clambered up to my shoulder and hunkered down like she's done it every day for her whole life
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Yes, you certainly have a wonderful KC girl on your shoulder. She was obviously someone’s hand raised pet. So sad that someone could just leave her like that.