Wild baby ducks!

[pdsavage]

Its tough being a wild baby duckling....Thanks for sharing....

 

[Miss Lydia]

I guess mom has to teach them just like mama chicken teaches her brood.

 

[desertdarlene]

Yep, the ones that watch and learn are the ones that survive unless something is wrong with them physically. I've found that the most disobedient and "adventurous" wild ducklings are often the first to go missing. Except for one, Flycatcher. She was very independent and did her own thing, but she did OK last year.

 

[Borncountry419]

Very cute! Thanks for sharing!

One question... Why do you think they're Rouen x mallard? They look like pure mallards to me. Lol

 

[desertdarlene]

Quote:
Some of the ducklings had two eyestripes like rouen ducklings in the first group. The mom is rouen and mallard, some of her boyfriends were also rouen mixes, too. Even the ones w/o two eyestripes might grow up large from what I've seen at this lake in the last two years.

In the second family, the one with 9 that I posted today, it looks like all of them might be pure mallard. I thought I saw one with almost two eyestripes, though.

 

[Borncountry419]

Ah k. Guess I don't see the second eye stripe. But I didn't know their past. Lol. Poor mama. I always felt so bad when the big drakes would mate with the bantam ducks. Or like my muscovies. Lol

 

[desertdarlene]

Quote:
I do, too! But, this female is a little larger than the regular mallards, so she did OK. There was only one muscovy at the lake this year and he didn't have any interest in any other types of ducks.

 

[desertdarlene]

Here's another update: Only one, very tired duckling left from that four that the real mom had of the first group of 11. I don't think it's doing well, either. I'm pulling for it. His/her name is Twostripes:

But, on the plus side, 5 of the same brood is doing very well with the Ducklingnapper. I am pretty sure this is the same brood as the female has an unusual shaped head and a couple of ducklings had unusual markings. I couldn't get a good photo of them, but here's the best I got of only four of them:

They're all 10 days old.

Also, the ten ducklings that almost got killed by the gander are down to four. One duckling is very disobedient and already thinks he's a full grown drake. He even follows the other males around. They are about 5 to 6 days old:

I feel so bad about the last of the first group. They were so friendly and ran up to me when I visited them. None of the other ducklings did that.

You know what might make me happy? More ducklings! It's only the beginning of the breeding season.

 

[desertdarlene]

Today, I found a brand new bunch of ducklings, including some stolen ducklings. They look to be about two weeks old, except for the stolen ones which appear to be about 6 days old.

Here's the mom, Peaches, with her two small stolen ducklings. One of the older ducklings is in the background:

Here she is with 7 of the 8 ducklings:

And, here's one of two older ones, including an all black duckling:

And, some of the family all together getting rested and oiled by mom:

 

[DuckLover9138]

desertdarlene,

Nice pictures! Do you have high quality ones? If you do, I want to make some of them my background picture! Also, how can you tell they are mallard-rouen hybrids at such a young age? Thirds, can they fly and how well?

Just from looking at your pictures, did half of them die within the first two weeks? How?