A pair of wild (well partly tame) Mallards visit our garden pond each Spring and last year they nested in a box I had made overhanging the water. They laid 10 eggs, all of which hatched, and we had the pleasure of watching them develop over several months (with a 24/7 guard due to local foxes) until all 10 finally flew off. I got some lovely photographs!
The adults are back again this year and have laid more eggs but another pair have arrived and I am sure the female is one of last years juveniles. There seem to be more eggs than I would have expected (10 when there would have been 8 if one laid per day)and the ducks are now disputing ownership of the nest box. I have seen each of the females sitting on the one nest.
Is it normal for ducks to share a nest or do I have a problem? Any suggestions for what I should do?
Farming Friends Forum » Ducks
Duck nesting problems
(14 posts)-
Posted 3 years ago #
-
Hi Omegaman,
Welcome to the farmingfriends forum. What a great thing to have watched last year seeing the mallards lay their eggs and hatch and rear their ducklings. Would love to see the photos.
My khaki campbells tend to share nests and I know that my quail and my guinea fowl share nests too. At some point one of them will lay claim and go broody and sit on the eggs until they hatch - well fingers crossed! I wonder what would happen if you replicated their nest close by so there were then two nests and you shared their eggs. Would they then both sit or would this disturb them and prevent them from sitting on the original nest?
Kind regards
sara @ farmingfriendsPosted 3 years ago # -
Hi Omegaman, I think Sara is right about making another nest if one goes broody. Don't know about wild ducks though, ours scoot if we are anywhere near. We do get them on our pond and they drop an egg from time to time but never make a nest. I did what Sara said with my geese as they were sharing and I read that it was not good for them to lay and share the same nest as it affects the eggs in the long run . It worked for me and my two girls each lay in seperate nests now but are not broody yet!!!!!. How lovely to see ducklings hatch and reared in the wild so to speak. We have mallards that do have nests on the river bank and we are lucky to see them with the ducklings swimming along .Never spotted a nest though.
Sara how lovely that your girls share the nests and then go broody !. Just can not wait. Regards Mama.Goose GirlPosted 3 years ago # -
I would suggest you leave them to get on with it, they will sort it out for themselves. I expect one pair will win out and the other pair will leave and start again. You could encourage this by putting another nest box within sight but far enough away to seperate the pairs. You may find they are sitting side by side like mine did.
regards,
Sarah LSarah LPosted 3 years ago # -
Hi everyone
Thanks for the warm welcome, Sara, and thank you all for your kind advice. The egg count is up to 13 as of yesterday! I set up an alternative nest as you all suggested but over the past 24 hours our first female, who we call Jemima (...I know, not very original!!!) has got broody and is now constantly sitting on the first nest and she even stayed overnight. The other pair have not returned during this period so it seems that you were all correct and that they have resolved the matter themselves. So now we await the outcome in about 30 days while I commence my fox patrol activities.
It was a real privilage to watch Jemima and Darcy (...he is such a gentleman!) raise their family last year. Sara, I would love to send you some of my pictures but I can't see anywhere to leave them on this site. If you want to, just email me a return email address and I will forward some of the best ones. I could write pages about our experiences with them but I won't bore you all here. Enough to say we had mixed feelings when they finally flew off in ones and twos. So sad, yet so pleased they all survived and that we had shared such a special experience.
Thanks to you all again for your helpful advice and I will post any further developments in due course
Best regards
KenPosted 3 years ago # -
How exciting! Glad they sorted themselves out. It's all in their genes to breed successfully.
Looking forward to seeing the photos of last years and this years too!
Sara will give you her email to send your photos too and will upload them to this page.Sarah L
Sarah LPosted 3 years ago # -
Hi Sarah
Thats great. I will look out for Sara's email. If you have Broadband, Sara, and can accept a reasonable file size, I can send a compilation of them and you can select the ones you like best.
After last year's episode I now have such a high respect for ducks and their behaviour. They seem to be very intelligent, loyal to each other, Darcy always waits until Jemima finishes eating before he eats, they are great parents, Jemima is suicidally very protective of the ducklings, and they have such incredible eyesight! They are able to spot a high flying bird of prey when it is just a dot in the sky. I didn't even know there were so many birds of prey in our skies until the ducks drew our attention to them. They can even discriminate between the dangerous ones (like Buzzards and Sparrowhawks) and the harmless ones. Amazing!
Today I can report "All quiet on the nesting front", although Jemima did come out for ten minutes to feed
Take care
KenPosted 3 years ago # -
Hi Ken, You are so right! My domestic campbells also made excellent parents and as you say, were ferociously protective, hissing and flapping if we went too near. George always watches over while the girls are eating and lets them have the worms when we throw them.
Our new girl Mattie, looked up to the sky the other day, which caused us to look up and a red kite was flying over! A VERY rare sighting for West Sussex! We also have a buzzard that perches on our electricity post in the garden and they don't take a blind bit of notice of it, but I guess if it had visited during young duckling season things may have been different.
SarahSarah LPosted 3 years ago # -
Hi Sarah
As a rank amateur, I have to confess to needing to Google Khaki Campbells before I knew what they looked like....what lovely looking ducks! Amazing to think that you have Red Kites overflying though. We haven't seen any in this part of Essex. In fact I have only ever seen Red Kites along the M40 corridor.
Now that Jemima is sitting on the nest virtually 24/7, I was thinking of starting a new topic on deterring foxes. As I am a newcomer to the forum, do you think it has already been overdone as a topic?
KenPosted 3 years ago # -
There was quite a debate on deterring foxes a while back. I can't find it listed but Sara might be able to find it and give you a link to it. Should be in the wildlife section I guess.........................
Sarah LPosted 3 years ago # -
Hi Ken,
Deterring foxes would be a good thread to start ken as it is useful to find out how each of us deter foxes.
Here are some threads about foxes already here on the forum:
http://farmingfriends.com/forums/topic.php?id=435
I have emailed you my email address so you can send photos of the ducks, I look forward to seeing them.
Kind regards
sara @ farmingfriendsPosted 3 years ago # -
Hi All,
Ken has emailed and sent me a photo of the lovely wild mallard ducklings from last year.
Hi Sara
Thank you for the email and the address.
I just returned last night from a long weekend in the west country and am pleased to say Jemima is still sitting on the eggs. Before I went away I installed a security light over the pond and our neighbours kept up the feeding. We had a scare during the night, however, when Jemima woke us at 1.00am and quacked for half an hour. Something had triggered the light so I suspect either a cat or fox. I will, therefore, start a new thread on fox defences on the forum.I will send a selection of last years duck pictures to you tomorrow but here is one to be getting on with.
Best regards
Ken
It's interesting to see them as I now think that some of my khaki campbells have wild mallard in them as a few of them had the yellowy stripes near their eys when they were ducklings!
Thanks for sharing this wonderful picture and I look forward to seeing more from last year. Glad Jemima is still sitting and that whatever spooked her the other night was unsuccessful!
Kind regards
Sara @ farmingfriendsPosted 3 years ago # -
Thanks Sara
I still love looking at the pictures myself. I feel that we were really privilaged to share the experience with Jemima and Mr Darcy, and I was so pleased that they all made it, and that we saw each of them fly off over a period of 5 days. Over the next week or so Jemima came back to us each morning, sometimes bringing up to 6 juveniles with her including several newcomers that I didn't recognise.
I was interested in what you said about your khaki campbells having Mallard in them. I have suspected that Jemima is not pure Mallard as she is very pale and is almost white in the summer (very pretty though!)
KenPosted 3 years ago # -
Hi Ken,
What a wonderful experience you shared with the ducks and seeing them all fly off as young adults must have been amazing.
I have 6 ducks and a drake and 3 of the ducks are completely a khaki colour and slightly smaller than the others. The other 3 ducks have some other colours on their wing a dark blue colour and also have yellow stripes mear their eyes as if they are wearing a zorro mask. They are also considerably bigger and as big as Sir Francis Drake!
I just assumed they were all pure khaki campbells as I had bought khaki campbell eggs but I think three have mallard/aylesbury in them. Interestingly the 3 pure khakis seem to stick together I don't know if this is because they are smaller and are bothered more by the drake and the larger ladies hang about with the drake more.
All interesting to observe.
Kind regards
sara @ farmingfriendsPosted 3 years ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.