I just walked out to see two ducks in my pond. My godfish range from 6 to 8
inches. Should I be concerned?

TIA Randy

By the way, it's a male and female mallard
Randy
"Randy" wrote in message
news:OOZgc.29713$yD1.79663@attbi_s54...
I just walked out to see two ducks in my pond. My godfish range from 6 to
8
inches. Should I be concerned?

TIA Randy

Randy wrote I just walked out to see two ducks in my pond. My godfish range
from 6 to
8 inches. Should I be concerned?

Not really. They can eat fish but they aren't
very good at it and their diet doesn't require enough protein to take care of
all your fish.

The thing that ducks do contribute to a pond is massive amounts of duck poo -
way out of proportion to the amount of food they take in.
They can be heck on a filter and the water quality of a pond, the smaller the
pond the harder they are on it.

Usually harrassment will convince ducks to move on. Borrowing a friendly
labrador will do the trick too.


kathy :-)
(still use ka30p for email
this acct. is for reading rec.ponds only)

Randy Perhaps this post from a fellow ponder will give you some insite.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: IAN
Subject: Ducks and Ponds
Date: 1999/03/20
Message-ID: #1/1

We have a man-made pond and wondered
if it is possilbe to buy baby duck to
put at the pond,

Wooah Tina... Don't rush into this duck thing.

I have a Peking, its a beautiful white innocent thing that poops in
unbelievable quantities. Never mind about a bio-filter, you are going to
need a sewerage system suitable for a small town to deal with what this
duck is going to do to your pond.

would they stay or would they leave?

No need to fret on this account - ducks never take the hint. Chuck `em
it in the air and it'll come right back. Sure it will occasionally
wander out onto the highway, but motorists would rather run off the road
and kill all their passengers than hit a duck that's sitting looking
right at them.

Look closely at the general design of your average duck, notice that the
cranium is small. It is my belief that if you could take all the duck
brains in the world and combine them in a sort of super organic computer
you would basically have a machine with a loose bowel and a vocabulary
limited to: "quack". A duck is a natural born lobotomy.

wondering if the cats if the neighborhood would bother them.

Hell no, the neighborhood cats will not bother your duck, unless it is a
duckling which you have just presented to your young daughter. Actually
you will find the neighborhood cats will avoid close encounters with
anything that looks like a duck. This is partly because cats dislike
stepping in duck doo to get to their prey and partly because the duck
thinks any passing cat must be its mother/sister/brother/mate. Even the
staunchest Tom cat finds it unnerving to have to deal with this sort of
thing and will generally go to extremes to avoid an embarrassing
encounter.

Would we need to
put a fence around it?

Sure, fence your duck, but it wont do you any good. You will still hear
screeching tires on the road and the neighbors will still phone you up
to say your duck is harassing their cat again.

If you do get a duck be sure to turn on the lights at night before your
walk across the lawn. One of the most unforgettable experiences you can
have is tripping over a sleeping duck in the dark.


Regards Ian Gill Westland New Zealand

LOL,,,,,That was funnylarious.
--
**So long, and thanks for all the fish!**



"Snooze" wrote in message
. com...
Randy Perhaps this post from a fellow ponder will give you some insite.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: IAN
Subject: Ducks and Ponds
Date: 1999/03/20
Message-ID: #1/1

We have a man-made pond and wondered
if it is possilbe to buy baby duck to
put at the pond,

Wooah Tina... Don't rush into this duck thing.

I have a Peking, its a beautiful white innocent thing that poops in
unbelievable quantities. Never mind about a bio-filter, you are going to
need a sewerage system suitable for a small town to deal with what this
duck is going to do to your pond.

would they stay or would they leave?

No need to fret on this account - ducks never take the hint. Chuck `em
it in the air and it'll come right back. Sure it will occasionally
wander out onto the highway, but motorists would rather run off the road
and kill all their passengers than hit a duck that's sitting looking
right at them.

Look closely at the general design of your average duck, notice that the
cranium is small. It is my belief that if you could take all the duck
brains in the world and combine them in a sort of super organic computer
you would basically have a machine with a loose bowel and a vocabulary
limited to: "quack". A duck is a natural born lobotomy.

wondering if the cats if the neighborhood would bother them.

Hell no, the neighborhood cats will not bother your duck, unless it is a
duckling which you have just presented to your young daughter. Actually
you will find the neighborhood cats will avoid close encounters with
anything that looks like a duck. This is partly because cats dislike
stepping in duck doo to get to their prey and partly because the duck
thinks any passing cat must be its mother/sister/brother/mate. Even the
staunchest Tom cat finds it unnerving to have to deal with this sort of
thing and will generally go to extremes to avoid an embarrassing
encounter.

Would we need to
put a fence around it?

Sure, fence your duck, but it wont do you any good. You will still hear
screeching tires on the road and the neighbors will still phone you up
to say your duck is harassing their cat again.

If you do get a duck be sure to turn on the lights at night before your
walk across the lawn. One of the most unforgettable experiences you can
have is tripping over a sleeping duck in the dark.


Regards Ian Gill Westland New Zealand

Not if you eat the ducks first!

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 00:05:02 GMT, "Randy" wrote:

I just walked out to see two ducks in my pond. My godfish range from 6 to 8
inches. Should I be concerned?

TIA Randy

Snooze wrote:

Hell no, the neighborhood cats will not bother your duck, unless it is a
duckling which you have just presented to your young daughter. Actually
you will find the neighborhood cats will avoid close encounters with
anything that looks like a duck. This is partly because cats dislike
stepping in duck doo to get to their prey and partly because the duck
thinks any passing cat must be its mother/sister/brother/mate. Even the
staunchest Tom cat finds it unnerving to have to deal with this sort of
thing and will generally go to extremes to avoid an embarrassing
encounter.

My guess would be that the cats would run like hell in the opposite
direction. We have four fairly "aggressive" cats. I've seen the
littlest one take on a very large german shepherd and win without
ruffling her fur. However, a parrot scares the heck out of them. So do
the guinea pigs. It's particularly funny with the guinea pigs because
the cats will sneak up on them from behind but make startled two foot
jumps backward if the guniea pig turns around.

Susan
shsimko[@]duke[.]edu

Should I be concerned?

Mallards will and do eat small fish. They break off the fins and remove enough
scales to kill the larger fish. If the pond is deep enough the ducks don't have
a good chance grabbing fish. Scales are almost all calcium and you may notice
the female with more fish in her mouth.
I was hit early in the season when the water was cold and the fish slow. The
tails were chewed off ranchu to comets, it didn't matter what size pond. The
deeper the safer; 24" plus.
Last season when the water was lowered for cleaning, ducks ate every top
quality fry and killed the adults. It wasn't until I saw the female with a huge
ryukin in her mouth that I solved the mystery. The ducks were so tame I could
get within reach of their necks.