Duck house… on water?

rjmyooper said:

Let's talk about your plans. You only want 2 Ducks? 1 Hen and 1 Drake, I assume? That's not a good idea. A drake Duck need a haram around. Having only one mating partner is really bad for the Hen. He will hurt her, badly, come mating season.
Consider keeping 3 Hens and 1 Drake. I think that's why the breeder sent you 6 instead of 2.

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not true at all, it COMPLETLY depends on the drakes personality. i know so many people who keep just a pair (1 male and 1 female) who do perfect together.

i have two pekin drakes who can absolutely never be with any hens, they are 3 years old and can only be with each other and/or with my other drake. my khaki drake is good with his two girls, he’d be fine with just one girl too. all depends on the individual drake.

We usually don't hear about drakes being kind to their lady only the ones that are causing trouble. It really does depend on the drake and they are all different.

rjmyooper said:

Let's talk about your plans. You only want 2 Ducks? 1 Hen and 1 Drake, I assume? That's not a good idea. A drake Duck need a haram around. Having only one mating partner is really bad for the Hen. He will hurt her, badly, come mating season.
Consider keeping 3 Hens and 1 Drake. I think that's why the breeder sent you 6 instead of 2.

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I already have 2 Pekin’s 1 male and 1 female that are a few weeks older. Out of the 6 anaconas I’m keeping 2 more females. So in total I will have 3 hens and only 1 drake

I believe why the breeder sent me 6, is because the first 2 they sent in the mail died. So they sent 6 to give a better chance of survival.

Quatie said:

I don't deal with them where I live, but I have read enough horror stories about snapping turtles too. Land predators are not the only thing to worry about. And yours can't fly away, which is the main way wild ducks escape predators.

Those ducks are going to need a minimum of 16sq ft. They will need to be an enclosed run at first as well. They will need to learn to trust the new owner if they are ever going to be able to get them to use a coop and not just stay on the pond all night.

If you don't want to give them away, there is nothing wrong with that. Just realize, once you do, they are no longer your animals to protect. So if you are worried, there is nothing wrong about being picky with who they go to. There is no way for you to keep all of them?

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Unfortunately no I can’t keep all of them. I don’t have the space. I already have a pretty big flock

CalliBee said:

Unfortunately no I can’t keep all of them. I don’t have the space. I already have a pretty big flock

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Ancona are a pretty desirable duck these days. You may have luck finding someone else in your area who would be willing to take them. I would personally keep my ducks a little overcrowded temporarily to prevent them from going somewhere I didn't agree with. You can always just float the idea on BYC in your area thread or a rehoming thread. It would at least give you options and leverage to get them to do better or else you will give them to someone else.

Put them on your state thread. It’s at where am I where are you. Tell them you want to see where they will live and how they are going to be kept so you’ll have peace of mind.

So I wanted to update everyone!

I had a talk with the lady who was going to take the ducklings and at first she didn’t seem very receptive of the idea of copping them. Come to find out, she was looking forward to having ducks live on her pond almost as a decoration and kind of had the mentality of if they live, they live and if not, oh well! I explained to her these aren’t wild ducks (I think she thought that was what we were doing, letting them go into the wild but on her land so we knew where at).
I explained that they are a lot like the chickens they have, they will need a coop and run.
The husband got to see them and said “wow do you think the duck house will be big enough for them?” And I explained that they’re only 8 weeks old and have lots of growing to do. His response was “well I worked really hard on this”
I left the conversation feeling unheard and upset.
This morning I received a message about how her husband has began the process of building them a more stable home ON LAND, and that they will be looking into providing more security for the ducklings.
I’m so happy! I really felt like no one listened to me and they made me feel overly dramatic. It seems like the husband is the one who has the tender heart for their flock and once he saw how small they still were and learned that ducks can’t just “swim away” from predators he realized how serious this actually was.

Thanks for everyone who gave me some advice! I’ll update everyone on when they go to their new home(if it’s satisfactory or not lol)

@CalliBee You might show the husband this thread:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/first-diy-floating-duck-house.1243027/

A truly amazing bit of duckhouse engineering. But the ducks do not sleep in it -- nor lay their eggs in it. There are more recent posts that the builder, Simpleenough77, has commented under and his ducks still sleep up by his house although they swim out to the duck house for recreation during the day.

Perhaps the husband will accept that his floating duck house maybe a novel idea, but ducks don't like them!

Isadora said:

"Built" ?
Lol, no one built that. That's a half-hearted attempt at best.
And yeah, not adequate for four ducks as far as space or predator proof.

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I totally agree. It's nothing more than a plastic dog house on wooden pallets. I would never put my ducks in that situation. Good luck in finding a good home for them.

Just an update for anyone who’s interested-
They built a coop for the ducks that they sleep in every night and they free range during the day. They immediately knew what to do, first night they went straight to the coop and have done so ever since.

I was worried that once they got out into the large pond they wouldn’t be able to gather them where they needed to go but they have instinctively taken to the coop! My hearts happy, they have really grown to love the ducks and seem to be taking great care of them.

Of course they have the floating duck house still out there and haven’t even used it once (told them those )

Thanks for everyone’s help and giving me the courage to express my concerns to them