Ducks In Your Garden

About

Looking for answers and quick tips about ducks in your garden?

Here we've tried to compile a short list of tips, suggestions, general comments and help.  A lot of this is based on what we saw, and what we were told from various wildlife organisations. 

• Ducklings can swim from the moment they're born, their feathers just aren't waterproof at this stage.
• You can feed ducks bread.  It's easier for them to eat if its damp, so putting it in or near water helps.
• Chances are if there's ducks in your garden then there's water near by. For us we had a pond in our garden. We found the ducklings struggled to get out, so we made a small ramp for them.
• We put a small bowl of water down along with a small bowl of food. This was mainly bird feed and pellets which we got from the local garden/pet shop.
• The ducklings eat a lot, especially at first, so be prepared for them to eat most of the plants insight - N.B. The plants mostly all recovered from the experience.
• The mother kept the ducklings close to her at first, and gradually as they got older, they misbehaved and explored by themselves more.
• Once the ducklings were older and bigger, the mother sometimes flew out of the garden for a bit during the day.
• If you have a greenhouse try and put something in the doorway to stop the ducklings getting in. At first we didn't consider this, and the duck lead all the ducklings in.  Unfortunately she didn't lead them all out again, and consequently went berserk when 1 was still inside by the glass.
• The mother is extremely protective of the babies, and although we never gave her reason to, I'm sure she could do you some damage if you attempt to go near!
• Let nature take it's course. We enquired about having them taken somewhere safer and better, but the mother could reject the ducklings if you do.
• Touching and holding the ducklings is not a good idea, the smell of human on them may lead the mother to reject them. If you do have to pick them up for some reason, where gloves.
• Once they were pretty much full grown and independent, the mother flew off for good.  The ducklings eventually all followed suit, it just took some time, and some bad flying attempts.
• If you have a pond in your garden, be prepared for it to be eaten and messy.
• If your pond has pumps or anything similar in, you may wish to consider checking they are safe. e.g. the ducks can't get stuck on them whilst swimming, or get injured from them
• In our case, the ducklings would attack the fish, and we lost a few. Most of the fish learnt to hide when the ducks were in the water though.
• The ducklings loved snails, and would have lots of hilarious fights over snails they found.
• We came very protective of the ducks, and did keep an eye on them, but we soon learnt that the mum was there to protect them, and when they were old enough, they took care of themselves pretty well.
• In the end we realised it was important to just let nature take its course.

Please remember these are just comments and suggestions based on what we found out, if you feel something here is wrong, there's a better way of doing something, or you have other points to add that may help someone else, please contact me.