Rescued these two from a runoff pipe. Cant wait to see what breed they are!
Posted Jul 3, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC
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“Look at those chickens”
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Haha, when my kids were little I would say, pretty horses!!! Every time we drove by cows!
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Amphibious chickens
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Check your particular state laws about raising wild breeds like Mallards. I found out, after I had been given a pair of Mallards, that is was illegal to own and breed Mallards in Florida due to them escaping and mixing with the wild population. FWC could have fined me heavily. I was trying to sell their babies on Craigslist and had someone call me and tell me. I then looked it up online and it was true. We had to process them all, 😥. Weird state laws...
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Yeah it's illegal here too.
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"Officer, they just showed up in my pond one day!"
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That actually happens. We had a few domestic ducks in our backyard when I was growing up and mallards would visit every so ften, presumably to share the cracked corn and kiddie pool.
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I have 3 couple month old Muscovy here, and the Mallards from the pond come up to make friends with them, but the Muscovy act like thugs and dis them, lol. It's sad and funny at the same time.
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I found a whole family, like these mallard chicks years ago. Mother was missing -only way she wouldn’t have been around to help them survive is that she was dead. I gathered them together & kept them for a very short while until I found a licensed person who was allowed to keep & raise them. Took them out to her ASAP, a few hours later. Learned SO much! It’s a 24-hour, 3 year ordeal to raise them from chicks to full flying, migrating & reproductive adults. She had multiple different pens for the mallards at different stages of their lives, including two barns & a pond, for when they’re about two years old, can fly short distances but won’t migrate yet, & need protection from wildlife. By calling the State if Michigan govt offices (my State) & researching, I was able to find this person - you should be able to do it also w/o much trouble. My advice is to do so. You will feel great about helping & rescuing these babies & it is virtually impossible to bring them to adulthood safely without a great deal of knowledge, experience & resources. It is against the law, in Michigan, to keep any wildlife w/o a proper license. I’m sure that has to do with the protection of the individuals, the species & the humans who come into contact with them (diseases can spread that may affect humans, but that don’t affect the wildlife). They’re cute & beautiful & somewhat rare (don’t think they’re endangered -yet), but it’s wrong & harmful to try to keep them for yourself or anybody else. They are wild & always will be wild, but they need protection & the right type of care to make it to adulthood when they will be free. Please Make the attempt to bring them to a licensed wild bird sanctuary & take them up on a tour of the sanctuary, if it is offered. This person had hundreds of different wild & domesticate species, for any # of reasons on how they got to her (injured, found, abandoned, etc), but, I got to see pens with robins & blue jays up close, a few hawks, a Peregrine Falcon, an Bald Eagle & other waterfowl, and even parrots & macaws. It was amazing - I will never forget it & I have never regretted the happy ending to my curious story of how I found these chicks and saved their lives!
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Aren't mallards native to Florida? To the entire US?
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Yes but the issue is genetic pollution of other wild species
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Ah, it didn't even register that we have bred a domestic version of the mallard. TIL.
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Tahst weird. IIRC almost all domestic duck varieties are actually mallards. So that's basically saying "you can't have domestic ducks in Florida."
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Mallard might be a reference to many ducks colour patterns but they can still be a different breed from Mallard, eg. Basic Mallard colour pattern but with a grey stripe at back (or something like that). Most domestic Mallard descendants are actually now a different breed. Maintaining wild Mallard as wild is a good idea. We farm pekin duck amongst other things, I may have a few things wrong there but think that's at least fairly accurate.
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Any chance you have a farm pond? Could you build some kind of floating shelter they can use to get away from raccoons? Maybe they'll learn to forage for themselves that way. Otherwise I'd say maybe look for a wildlife rehabilitator in your area.
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I do have a pond. There is another Malard with 4 babies out there, but they are way bigger.
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Huh. I wonder how that would go, because I think they do lay a few times each spring/summer, don't they?
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I have 3 Muscovy ducks here that they took to immediately, bit the Muscovy we're scared of them lol. Not sure how the Mallard Mom would act.
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Interestingly enough, they look exactly like my Muscovy ducklings....
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She may adopt the babys if she sees them even if they are smaller than hers. I say this only because I rescued a mallard myself and tried to prep him to be a duck kept him near a pond fed him in the water so he would have forage for it like a duck, by the time actual mallards came by he was almost fully grown and had no clue how to interact with them so now I have a pet mallard(that we love) that is compleatly free to leave but stays as no flock will take him.
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I was going to let them go next time u see her, hopefully she will adopt them
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They'll be okay without Mumma duck if you look after them a bit. Might need two or three months with some nice shelter and protection from predators at night so put them in shelter at night, but they may not learn wild habits so will become domestic and not migratory etc I believe.
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Yep I say mallard as well.
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Prolly just a bunch of raccoons
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Mallard
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I'm guessing they're of the duck breed. ;-)
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We need some video of them!
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We??
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All us redditors :)
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Videos coming soon!
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Thanks! Video of ducklings water is the cutest! Might consider posting them to r/aww
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I’m pretty sure they’re birds.
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Some folks talking about questionable legality in certain states...
Mallards are covered by the Migratory Birds Act of 1918.
It's illegal to kill, possess, disturb, etc them under federal law. You likely require appropriate documentation as a licensed wildlife rehabilitator to "rescue" them.
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I'm not even sure what breed they are, ya know!?
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They're baby mallards, as others have said.
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They are Mallards.
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Just go to a local park. Most have free ducks and you can just bring home as many as you like.
I'm hoping to pick up a dozen for my all duck production of Hello Dolly
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These are WILD ducks. One they’re 3 years old, they’ll migrate & don’t come back to where you raised them. Interestingly, they will migrate back to the area in which they were born. The family stays together for two years, when the parents feed & protect them. After that, the parents will migrate but leave the two year-olds to fend for themselves until they’re 3, when they will also join the migratory pack, find a mate & begin breeding. I think they mate for life also, but can’t remember exactly. They can be hunted, but most hunters I know don’t like the taste of them - they’re described as dark greasy meat & very game-y tasting. They eat bugs, generally, so need wetlands & areas in which they can get enough to eat & grow. The Great Lakes region, as all know, is full of lots of bug varieties, even when we have a rare ‘drought’.
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Cute
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Looks like some mallards!
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Oh my God baby ducklings! They're so much fun. Good luck!
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Cute. That’s what they are. Super duper ducky cute.
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I think they are mallards
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Definitely Mallards. Im raising some captive ones right now.
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Captive?
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I work for a zoo and we have captive pairs and are raising the ducklings. I think that they are on a permit.
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We're using your Facebook page and yu
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They look to be mallards with the solid stripe across the eye with the single dot below. That’s just my very uneducated opinion.
My guess as well.
They are mallards (have several myself)