European Gardening: Gone Fishing..........., 1 by Baa

Baa wrote:
Yes, I caught the Silver Bantam drake *G* Beetle is the one with the splayed wings and his head in the seed tray. There are two ducks that are mainly all white, one is a Black East Indian, she's 7 and has gone white with age and was a little stressed when we had more ducks and she was ousted as top duck. The one in the middle is a Blue East Indian and 6 years old but she's always been that colour so it's a poor breed marker. The Black Eat Indian drake at the back is also 7 so they don't always turn white with age. The little duck at the back (2nd from right) with the leopard skin markings on her breast is Beetle's on off partner and a Call Duck.

We've found if the ducks are out in the garden all day, every day, they tend to sit on plants for a rest, we lost a Mandrake through that but if they are out for half a day, every day they are more interested in filling their crop with insects, snails, slugs and grass. We have had to fence off the pond, the fence around ours is only 1ft high but if they do get in for a number of days, they can make a real mess of a fairly small garden pond and kill off quite a lot of the pond life. If you have a good filter it's not so bad but they will eat whatever will fit in their bills. They are only about at much work as chickens and they have half a clam shell sand pit as a duck pond.