Get outta my house!! Crows are crafty animals. It doesn’t take them long to figure out when and where you feed your backyard ducks. The crows in my neighborhood devised a strategy where one would look out for danger and the other would go inside the house to eat. Afterward, they switch places so no belly goes empty. While crows may not pose a threat to your full grown ducks, watch out for your ducklings! The most famous crow strategy is to get close and look disinterested. Then, as soon as your duckling looks away, they dive bomb them! If they can’t carry away prey, crows have been known to kill and eat small birds on the spot. They’ve been observed in the wild attacking and killing mourning doves this way. One of my favorite pairs of crows had a great strategy to distract me. One would feign an attack but in reality it was a decoy. Once distracted, it’s mate would fly in for the kill. Luckily my duckling dove fast enough that he didn’t get hurt. Eventually I became so annoyed that I started throwing rocks at them. A big one was situated on my roof. I tossed a rock at him. He jumped away, grabbed the rock, and threw it back at me. I was dumbfounded. Naturalists have also observed crows dropping rocks on the heads of sparrows to kill them from above. If you have ducklings in your backyard, make sure to leave them in a secure cage if you’re not within 3 feet of them.
The second predator you should keep an eye on, which applies only if your ducks have access to a pond, are turtles! Soft shell and snapping turtles have the kind of jaw crunching force which enables them to grab your ducklings and drag them under. I’ve lost many a good duck to turtles. Unless you’re a mother duck it’s pretty much impossible to “teach” your duck to avoid the danger from underneath. In the wild, ducklings learn about it by seeing their siblings get eaten first. It’s probably best not to let them swim in unknown ponds if you can help it. The turtles in these pictures are wandering females who go from pond to pond and usually get stuck in my backyard.
Wandering neighborhood cats can also be troublesome. I used to be able to walk my ducks around the neighborhood, but an influx of cats makes that impossible. Cats like to hunt at dusk so make sure your ducks are all locked up! Another cunning night predator is the raccoon. I leave out a giant otter trap in between two fences near the lake. Unfortunately, we’ve never bagged an otter but instead keep trapping numerous raccoons.
Raccoons like to slip under small spaces such as fences to stay hidden from view. If you want to trap one, you don’t need any bait. All you have to do is put a trap in a tightly enclosed area and they’ll come in willingly. Raccoons hunt at night, so make sure your ducks are locked up at dusk. If you are housing your ducks in a wire cage, make sure the holes are very very small. My friend had an expensive macaw that got eaten through the cage by a hungry raccoon! All that remained were the two bloody stumps of it’s feet. Raccoons are territorial and have learned to live side by side with humans. Your yard is probably the territory of one or two raccoons who patrol your neighborhood and peer into your trash nightly.
We’ve saved the nastiest super predator for last. In the duck world, he’s the equivalent of the boogey man. You only have to fear this guy if you live next to a pond. Even if you have a fenced in yard, your ducks may not be safe in the day time. He lives in water and on land and can fit through a 2 inch horizontal or vertical space. That means he can zip through raccoon holes under fences and gaps in your fence’s wire. His intelligence sets him apart from any other predator we’ve mentioned so far. He is the river otter.
It’s almost impossible to get a good picture of this guy, as he runs away as soon as I open the door. This wily otter has been haunting my flock of ducks for years. He’s been able to sneak into my fence every which way and has an insatiable appetite for the fattest ones. Here he is next to the duck house, waiting to claim my last female. She trembles at the sight of him and recognizes the way he swims in the pond just outside the fence. For this reason, I only let my ducks out when I’m home so I can hear her danger call and come running before he can strike. After we poured concrete along the bottom of our fence we haven’t had any more burglaries but we still keep our eyes peeled. I knew a farmer lady who kept donkeys because they were good guard dogs against coyotes and foxes. A sheep dog, goose or other type of loud and aggressive guard animal would be a great addition to a flock. Sometimes ducks get so scared they go down without uttering a sound.
