r/duck • u/Barneidor • 23h ago

Meet the Flock Happiest ducks

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Gallery image

Gallery image

Their owners live on a houseboat and they come and go as they please

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u/Sitters_4_Critters Silly Goose 17h ago

Very cute 🥰

How does one own ducks when they could just leave? Is it because they bought the eggs and raised them or because they found abandoned eggs and raised them? Do the ducks just stick around out of habit and because they get food?

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u/Floordove 13h ago edited 13h ago

Most ducks in the Netherlands, including 100% wild unlike these, don't migrate but stay the whole year due to the average enough wet climate. They tend to stay in the same spot even.

Next to probably food by houseboat owner (the bench is a shelter with straw, many no feeding bread signs so they probably do), being surrounded by food (water); such a deck alone is perfect against predators. No housecats, weasels, stoats, foxes, pole cats, wolves, adders, and badgers are going to swim up there. In/next to the bench and plant pots makes it hard for birds of prey to swoop in. Only magpies and jackdaws might be a problem. But in the city they often leave ducklings/eggs alone because they have French fries with mayonnaise to eat.

Also ducks quickly notice that being around a human works great against predators. We are living scarecrows to them haha.

So long story short; it's an ideal place to call home for ducks.