What do you guys do about a very loud duck?

[pekin12ducks]

My duck recently has been very loud quacking, she usually isn't this bad, but is there any way that I could do something to make her quieter? Like more free range time or toys/bells, or a larger pool???

 

[SueT]

Cuddles

 

[Duck Drover]

We keep our feeder full at all times otherwise the ducks will run to us quacking every time we open the back sliding glass door or they hear the gate latch. Ducks are smart so they can get pretty demanding once they figure out how to train people to give them what they want, lol. Because we brood our ducks inside and socialize them in the process, we have to be careful not to let them get too dependent on us so they are free to be ducks without us outside with them all the time.

We have one group of adults for sale so they have become wary of us bringing strange voices into their yard. If it is just us they will go about their business but when they hear us talking to someone and a buyer is looking them over they know the net will come out and grab some of them, never to be seen again. They give us "the eye" now when we have visitors.

We have one hen that we raised inside and handled alot during physical therapy so she seems to know she is our favorite and not going anywhere. Even when we get out the net for duck round-ups to clip wings she will practically walk up to us as if to volunteer to get her trim done with because she knows she is not going anywhere.

The more we use the net to catch them and release them the more they know they are safe but when we use the net and those ducks disappear, they learn to fear the net. The net is actually the safest way to catch them without grabbing them but they still run from it so we can use it to move them from yard to yard, otherwise they are not too easy to herd. We could flap our arms at them all day and they would just walk right past us.

We do feed treats at times but we have to be unpredictable about it so they don't expect it. The chickens get more scraps on a regular basis so they will come running but they are not smart enough to demand treats the way the ducks will if they learn to expect them. Birds are pretty motivated by food so if they learn how to control their source of food they will have people trained in a short time. Because ducks can make so much noise when they get demanding, it is better to teach them that you are not there for them to control with their noise.