lauraelaine's Page

Rachel: I found your posting and was going to reply, but was waiting for my new account to be approved.

The ducks are only noisy at certain times: in the morning when they want to be fed and as a warning that something is going (could be my three year old chasing them or a dog or a cat). I have one male and one female. They are the queen and king of the backyard and they boss around even my two cats and rabbit. Unlike stories I have heard of geese, however, they have never been aggressive to me or my three year old, who occasionally catches the male duck (and that is a sight to see).

I used to live in a house with just a chain link fence and one of the neighbors said to me. "I thought I heard ducks the other morning" and I had to claim them as my own, but no one has ever said anything bad to me. I don't suppose they are any louder than my hens or the mockingbirds, sparrows, or love birds that are around our neighborhood. The male and the female make a very different sound. The male has the traditional "quack" and the female makes two sounds a kind of cooing (not sure how to describe it) and kind of clicking quack. Getting them in at least a pair helps with the noise, possibly three. We had dogs attack the ducks over a year ago and lost all but one. She was terribly mournful until we found her a mate.

She was a great layer, laying faithfully every day, but recently she started to get a little broody so I indulged her and didn't take her eggs. But she is a jemima puddle-duck (see Beatrix Potter story) and a bad sitter. Finally, I had to take the eggs away because they were clearly not hatching (I candled them) and it seemed to make her more fretful than anything and make the male aggressive. Now she is either hiding her eggs really well or she is taking some time getting back into laying regularly.

The ducks are definitely fun to watch. I have one of those blue plastic pools and I move it around the yard and empty the water into different areas.

It looks like you have a pen for your chickens. That's probably best. My chickens were free range with the ducks, but when my female duck got broody the male got bored and decided to take my tiny bantams as part of his harem. One we found dead in the pool and i think he might have tried to mount her in there and accidently drowned her. The other chicken he pulled all the feathers off the neck, in an attempt to groom. So I got two new banties and I made a little house for them and put our poor remaining bantam with them. The ducks still hang around the chicken house and check on the chickens. They clearly want them to be part of their flock.

Well hope that's not too much information. Let me know if you have any other questions. Also, this site was a great help when I first start with Khaki Campbells: http://www.newagrarian.com/homestead/ducks/index.html.

Good luck and let me know!
Laura