Duck!

[Shadeslayer]

Well my neighbor has ordered 10 baby ducks to be delivered to his house on the 20th of this month. He has offered me one of these ducklings free of charge. I can never pass down a deal like this! I need help on some cage ideas.

I have thought out plenty of ideas and I think i have the basics down. My only problem is coyotes. He has a bad coyote, badger, and mongoose problem. How could I protect my poor duckling from these beasts.

Electric fences are out of the question. To expensive and to much of a hassle. I have some chicken wire that I am putting up but that is not nearly enough defense. What are some other ways to defend?

Also what would be a good name for a duck? Spike? lol

[johnbjuice]

1. Name the duck Bob.

2. Do you have a basement? Garage? Shed? Good place to start. They won't go after a duck that isn't visible.

- Juice

[HotDog-Cart]

Buy a jackass. (Donkey)

Coyote's and such wont attack one of those.

[Skyone]

Oh - dude! I found some ducks with their mom walking across the street a few days a go, got some quality pictures!

http://skytroniks.com/IMG_1960a.JPG

They're so cute, you're very lucky to get one! I have no ideas about caging it, perhaps you can build a comfy nest in your garage for night time?

[atari2600a]

LOL, I named my ducks Spike & Mitsy. Spike cause the duckling had an afro, & Mitsy cause Psyduck was the first thing to come to mind, & then Misty, but thatwould be copyright infringement I guess, so it became Mitsy...

I let mine run freely in my backyard, but here in Sacramento houses have 6" fences covering everything.

[Shadeslayer]

Well I do not have a basement, just a crawl space. Wouldn't be aloud to use it though.

No garage or shed either.

It has to be out side until I can house break it (yes you can house break ducks and geese).

My neighbor (the one that is giving me the duck) had a pet goose and it lived in his room and even slept in his bed. He trained it to attack on command. His word for attack was "taco" .

He ended up rolling over on top of it in the middle of the night and suffocating it.

I figure if I put the cage really close to our motion censer flood light in the back yard, and something tries to attack in the middle of the night, the light would scare it off.

What about the day though? Don't have enough room or money for a donkey

[Kurt_]

He has a bad coyote, badger, and mongoose problem.

Are you making this up? Where the hell do you live?!

Do you have any idea how funny that sounds to me?

I suggest NOT caging your duck. Build him a nice big cage, if you must, 8' x 8' x 8'. Simply because he is a duck. It doesn't even need to have a top, so he can fly out for dinner sometimes, and go visist all the neighbour ducks!

[CronoTriggerfan]

He has a bad coyote, badger, and mongoose problem.

Yeah man, where the hell are you in Michigan? There's NO WAY you can have a mongoose problem; they're indigenous to Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and parts of Europe, and they're actually illegal to import, thus if you have any mongoose in the area, it's because someone brought it in illegally and let a small population of them free in your area.

As for badgers, we don't have them in Michigan, either; I live here, trust me. The only badgers in N. America are, you guessed it, the American Badger, which lives on the Mexican border and parts of central Canada. Oh, and you do know they're an endangered species who are scared of humans by nature, correct?

As for coyotes, that's understandable; we have them here, too, my puppy barks at them all the time. Now THOSE you REALLY have to worry about! Our next door neighbors had a family of wild ducks living under their deck, and they were all slaughtered by coyotes. My friend, who raises ducks for food, had the same problem.

There is a solution, but it involves killing or trapping them; because if they REALLY want your duckling, they will get it. The way my friend did it was, he bought a chicken from the grocery store, an extra bloody one. He tied it up on a tree, just above where a coyote could get at it. When they came out and jumped for it, they were easy targets. You know the rest of the story. Again, may be violent, and perhaps you won't want to do that. You could always try trapping and relocating them, but they're pretty smart little buggers, so a live trap might be tough. Good luck!

CTFan

[bicostp]

If you do let it out, get a small kitten collar and have a tag made up.

My neighbor used to have chickens. He made a big fenced in area in the corner of his yard that was accessible through a small coop. You could do something like that.

[Sir Games-A-Lot]

What about some kind of raised platform above coyote level?

[ghosstt]

how are you going to make it so it doesnt fly away?

[Kurt_]

Isn't a fence the same thing as a raised platform above coyote level?

[vskid]

How about a chain-link dog kennel? You could just make your own if you got the poles and the fencing.

Get a Siberian Husky or similar dog. My aunt and uncle had one (it died a few year ago) and it fought off two wolves, on its own. Not coyotes, wolves. But he was nice enough that he never did anything to their cats or little kids (I assume you could make one like ducks, too).

how are you going to make it so it doesnt fly away?

You could clip its wings.

[CronoTriggerfan]

Get a Siberian Husky or similar dog. My aunt and uncle had one (it died a few year ago) and it fought off two wolves, on its own. Not coyotes, wolves. But he was nice enough that he never did anything to their cats or little kids (I assume you could make one like ducks, too).

Agree'd; if you have one already, then that's probably the mechanism around. Not even a big dog, just a dog in general. I have a little mutt, and she's managed to scare off our coyotes on numerous occasions just because she's alert and barks like crap until they leave. Though I don't think that just randomly buying a dog to keep a pet duck is a smart move, both personally and economically...

CTFan

[nightwheel]

Also what would be a good name for a duck? Spike? lol

How about Ben Heck in houner of our favrite modder