My sister in law gave me 2 ducklings yesterday for my upcoming birthday. Do they do much damage to a garden? I have a couple ponds so they should be happy here but I have never kept ducks before. I have kept parrots for years, indoors. moderator's note: added a more descriptive title to topic
Firstly here is a website about keeping baby ducks that should be of some help to you: http://www.howtodothings.com/pets-and-a ... ducks.html Secondly here's another one that tells you about the damage ducks can do in a garden: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/ga ... arden.html Do let us see some photographs of the new additions to your family won't you? :-D
how wonderful gardentoad! we are getting some baby ducks this spring too. we haven't had any for a couple years now, but had lots of fun in the past. they do love ponds! even kitty pools! aas for the gardens, our ducks were pretty much under verbal control. a couple words and they'd leave the area. great links eileen!
Thanks for the links. I couldnt get the one about keeping baby ducks to open but I will try again later. It's not realy true that I never had ducks. My family had 2 when I was about 4 or 5. I remember the eggs and petting them but that was about all. My mother had iris and a few roses. My father had a veggie garden but it was fenced off. I had been thinking about getting chickens but I knew I'd have to keep them in a pen. I was told they would eat or scratch up everything down to the ground. It sounds like I can let the ducks just run free. The article said their wings are pinned.Is that just the flight feathers clipped off or is it different? I have a couple mini dachshunds and I want to keep the ducks seperate from them just in case. I have a 2 foot fence that keeps the dogs out of most of the yard but I will need to keep the ducks on their side.
When I was a kid we had some ducks. My mom said if I put some pebbles in a paper bag and shook it, I could train the ducks to follow me and they did! They would walk behind me in a perfect little line. They were so cute and friendly. Good luck with yours.
that's what ours did daisy! i'd shake a can with grain in it and they'd follow me anywhere...till ed taught them how to fly! i haad two males that would sit on my shoulders as i walked around. really fun! gardentoad, clipping the wings is to keep them from flying away. i'm not sure which feathers to clip as we never did that. here's another link to a site with lots of questions and answers... http://www.liveducks.com/faqs.html out here in the sticks we had to concern ourselves with protecting the flock from coyotes that came around seasonally. we kept the ducks in a pen at night. hawks (daytime) and owls (at night) were another problem. one once we had a cougar take a couple right out of their pen! this time we are really making the pen critter tight!
After learning that they wont destroy everything we bought 2 more when I went after a bag of food and bedding. Thanks for the tip to get them to follow. My daughter will like that. She took them to the garden yesterday for the first time. It was unusually warm here. Mmmmmm worms! Water outside is still too cold so she brought them a dish to drink from. A bath before going back in the box. They were very dirty.
They sure are cute as can be. We used to let ours swim in the tub when they were tiny. Be careful with your dogs around them. Dogs will be dogs...
My mom had a flock once and the bitties will follow you everywhere.They think its their mommy.If you run they will too all in a row.Yours brought back so many memories.Thanks for the photos.
Ours flew away, 'cos I forgot to clip their flight feathers. We can hear them on the Lake at the Big House up the road. They were Call ducks which are very noisy.
