Woah!!!

[The Red Rooster]

Our call duck went for a little test flight. He flew over our house.. and landed in the high way!! We had to run into the road and catch him!!

 

[dumb_cluck]

Time for some enclosure options........... I used a cargo net over my Mallards. Worked.

However Calls are much smaller, so I recommend a hardware cloth top. Good Luck and Good Catch!

 

[greymane]

Holy cow!! Glad you caught him safe and sound. We just got some Call ducks this weekend, so looks like I better keep an eye out. Fortunately, we only have one other neighbor on our road and the enclosure is a good distance from the road.

 

[zzGypsy]

Quote:
nice test! Yikes!

if they're not show birds, you always have the option to clip the flight feathers on one wing... our ducks free range so we don't have the option of top enclosures (not on 40 acres!) so we clip the flights once they finish growing in. if you do this, a couple of things to know:
- it doesn't hurt them
- DON"T clip until the feathers are fully grown, if you clip a pin feather or one that's still got blood supply, you have a very bloody situation.
- only clip one wing. if you clip both, some ambitious ducks will insist on flying even without flights, provided both wings match. granted, they can't get far, but maybe far enough to get over the fence.
- when they molt, you'll need to re-clip them.

we clip the flights back to the first set of cover feathers, no closer than that. basically what you're doing by clipping one side is unbalancing their flight. ours will still windup for takeoff, and sometimes get off the ground, but they imediately start to bank (flight balance) and land.

we generally don't clip the flights on our chickens and turkeys because we want them to have plenty of wing to get up in the trees to roost, and generally the heavy ducks and geese can't gett enough air to get over the fencing, but the light breed ducks... well, they're flyers.

 

[The Red Rooster]

Quote:
nice test! Yikes!

if they're not show birds, you always have the option to clip the flight feathers on one wing... our ducks free range so we don't have the option of top enclosures (not on 40 acres!) so we clip the flights once they finish growing in. if you do this, a couple of things to know:
- it doesn't hurt them
- DON"T clip until the feathers are fully grown, if you clip a pin feather or one that's still got blood supply, you have a very bloody situation.
- only clip one wing. if you clip both, some ambitious ducks will insist on flying even without flights, provided both wings match. granted, they can't get far, but maybe far enough to get over the fence.
- when they molt, you'll need to re-clip them.

we clip the flights back to the first set of cover feathers, no closer than that. basically what you're doing by clipping one side is unbalancing their flight. ours will still windup for takeoff, and sometimes get off the ground, but they imediately start to bank (flight balance) and land.

we generally don't clip the flights on our chickens and turkeys because we want them to have plenty of wing to get up in the trees to roost, and generally the heavy ducks and geese can't gett enough air to get over the fencing, but the light breed ducks... well, they're flyers.

Thanks! We did clip him but he molted and grew some great flying wings!

 

[zzGypsy]

Quote:
yep, that'll happen! we check them weekly once they start to molt...
still have one that wants to fly even with them clipped!