Gone Fishing...........

For Ducks

The pole is ready and baited with duckweed, now can I get any bites from this little lot?

You've some interesting colours there. Did you catch any? Is Beetle there or does he still keep away from the others?

If I had ducks in the garden would they have to be kept away from the fish pond? I'm very tempted to get some but have a feeling that they will trample everything down and mess up the pond. I know you are very fond of your ducks so your views would be very helpful.

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.

Are those ducks good to eat? Regards Paul

Thanks Baa. I'm glad Beetle has managed to fit in with the others. I must say I'm very tempted to get some. I don't think I would want to eat them so I would be looking for good layers. I shouldn't think you would want to eat yours either since they have made it to seven years old! I just can't face killing anything even though I'm not vegetarian.

He looks very cute in the picture. They should do well in my pond it has plenty of duck weed.

was just a joke

Paul, they are Bantam ducks so the straight answer is no, especially since one of them was hand reared from an hour old. Far too much work into one little bird, the man hours alone would make him one of the most expensive meals ever produced.

Pat,

You probably already know this but the Khaki Cambells are excellent layers, some strains almost as good as a chicken and generally not prone to flightlyness like the East Indians. I'd defintely have a separate and cleanable duck pond were it me though, easier to transfer the duckweed than to clean a pond out ;)

I found it very hard to "dispatch" animals too, I only ever did it if it was absolutely necessary (animals who would die a slow and painful death otherwise) and that was only if there wasn't someone else around to do it. The trade off was that I did most of the castrating that needed doing, neither was a very pleasant job!

Beetle was funny today, I placed a seed tray on the floor of the greenhouse and was doing something on the bench when he walked in. I was talking to him and watching that he didn't dabble in the tray, all the time telling him I was watching him and not to be a naughty boy (not that naughty really applies outside of the human race does it *G*). He kept cocking his head and looking up at me until I turned for half a second and I head the telltale tapping noise as he wiggled his bill in the seedtray. I shouted Beetle! and he jumped back, cocked his head again, shook his tail and decided not to stay for the rest of the lecture LOL. How much he really understands I don't know, he knows 3 words for certain, his name, no and naughty, beyond that probably no more than he needs to understand as a duck but it was funny just to see him listening away, and then giving in to an all too strong a temptation when no longer distracted.

Beetle sounds like a naughty toddler. I think birds and animals quickly understand your tone of voice. My cockatiels know to stop trying to eat the picture frame as soon as I say "No!", but they still do it if I'm not looking. They also sneak behind a vase and make nests out of the wallpaper if I don't keep an eye on them. I don't like keeping birds in a cage so I let them out for a fly occasionally but they can be quite destructive.

I have my son to blame for bringing home an escaped cockatiel which he found at the top of the moors - he knows I'm a soft touch with animals. All the cats we've ever had have found us and my dog was a rescue dog. Then I thought it wasn't fair to have just one bird on its own and bought him a friend and now we've got their babies too - Nemo and Beanie.

LOL your Cockatiels sound like a lot of fun! I'd love to have some, I have big plans for when (that's positive thinking by the way not necessarily reality ;) a large wedge of cash comes my way.

It's always hard to know what and how an animal understands as I suppose we can only consider it in human terms. Too much anthropomorphicaion leads to a lot of woolly thinking but then again the fact that most animals are able to adapt their communication skills to tell us what they want very clearly makes me feel I'm rather more inferior in that area!

BAA,

Love your ducks!!

There is a lady who posts on the Mid-South Forum with a user name of "DuckMother", she rescues ducks and has for years.

See her posting of Nov 9, 2006 6:17 PM on this thread http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/665494/ or better yet just do a "find" on the word "duck" she's posted several times about her ducks on this thread.

Judy