What is the friendliest breed of duck?

[newlifecowgirl]

I have 5 Khaki Campbell ducks, not the friendliest bunch even though I hand raised them, I like to watch them regardless! So much fun! But what is a friendlier breed of duck? or is there? Sorry pretty new to raising ducks!

 

[Totes Quackers]

I only have 1 Khaki Campbell, I handraised him from a day old and he is super friendly! He comes a waddling when he see's me coming, he's not as friendly with other people in the family tho unless they have food he wants! I have wondered about 'friendly' duck breeds too. I duck-sat a runner for a week and she wasn't very friendly but she was probably just home sick.

 

[duckyfromoz]

If you are ever over in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne Totes Quackers.. let me know and you can come meet my Runners. They are all hand raised and very tame- some of the adults are a bit standoffish at times- but they certainly arent wild and skittish like some peoples are.

Muscovies are pretty placid when hand raised - I kind of look at them as feathered dogs... the way they are always wagging their tails.

 

[Totes Quackers]

Thanks Duckyfromoz! I'm South East! The runner i duck-sat is friendly at their house, I think it was nerves, suddenly she's at a new house with a new duck and chickens.. it must have been scary! By the end of the week tho she had warmed up and made friends with everyone.. she did scare my son the first night when he heard her quacking.. he didn't know what it was! lol
I just love ducks!

My husband had muscovies when he was a kid and he agreed with the 'feathered dogs'... lol.

 

[DurhamDuck]

I've got 10 Blue Swedish ducks and three of them are very friend and if I leave the back door open they will walk right into the house to see what I'm doing- probably looking for some peas!

 

[Wifezilla]

Pekin and scovies are more "dog-like" from what I hear. Welsh Harlequins are pretty friendly and mine eat from my hand, but they are not cuddle ducks.

 

[desertdarlene]

I've had pleasant experiences with muscovies and pekins and pekin-hybrids. I would avoid Indian runners, though, if you want a friendly, calm duck. It's not that they will never be friendly, it's just that it takes spending more time with them to get them that way. And, even then, they probably won't be friendly with people they don't know or unsure of.

 

[mandelyn]

I'm starting to think it's a temperament thing more than a breed thing, I'm seeing way too much variance between my birds that have had the same rearing.

Last night, I sat with them in the coop and the favorite came up and nibbled my hands, I cradled it's fat belly and it plopped it down in my hand and sat down. I can pet it anywhere too, it doesn't care. It's Pekin/Mallard. Another, same cross, same age, same rearing. It walks away from me with it's mouth open like a goose that's hissing. Fine, no peas for you!

A Pekin girl I kept from the bunch given to me, I can pet her now. She hated me, but it didn't take much for her to come around. My wild type Mallard, flighty as a game bird. No hope for that one, so I'm ignoring out. Even though I hatched it and handled it from day one. If it wants to make friends later in life for food, it will. But I'm not chasing it around to hold it and stressing it out, and making it hate me more.

The little Saxony, I honestly don't think it knows what to think. It lives in the moment. LOL If I hold it, it loves it. If it's with the others, it's just as freaked out as the others. If the favorite comes over, it does too. It just... goes with whatever is happening. If the group splits up and some go to eat and some go to swim, it stands around lost not knowing which thing it wants to do. Poor goofy thing!

 

[MissusDee]

Depends on what you call friendly, and individual ducks have individual personalities. Though it seems of the 3 types I have, my pekins seem the most likely to eat out of my hand. I have a mallard though that comes when called and "talks" to me and will follow me around, but I have had her a while, and the two other mallards I raised her with were the only ones that followed me like puppies, now both gone

. The buffs I have if I pick them up they don't get upset, and seem to love to be petted, though the pekins love petting if I don't pick them up (they freak if I do, and they are quite big so it's hard to do that anyway). Some breeds seem less skittish than others, though I imagine they all "love" their people, just differently.