Wild Ducks: How to Rear and Shoot Them

by W. Coape Oates

At this time, too, they use a different note, and to quote a very apt term used by a friend of mine, they "begin to talk." About the beginning of February it is advisable to hint to the ducks where you want them to lay. If you have any large trees in your paddock, place a number of sticks up against the trees in the form of a circle, leaving one or two clear spaces inside the heap. Then make some circular holes, one in each of the spaces, and about five or six inches deep, and shelving gradually from rim to centre. It is best to scatter some sand in these holes, so that the birds can more easily work the nests to the dimensions that suit them. Don't make the nests too small or too shallow, as they may have to contain fourteen or fifteen eggs. It is advisable to put some short dry grass or old hay near the nest, and a very little in it, so that the duck can manipulate it at her pleasure.

The principal thing to remember is, that the nest must be sheltered as much as possible from draughts, and be made well in the middle of the cover, as ducks like darkness when they are sitting. Broom is about the best cover you can use for sheltering a nest, and is most adaptable. Practical experience, and one's early failures, teach one more than anything else how a nest should be made, and yet often when you are satisfied that you have selected a most suitable spot for nesting purposes, you will find a duck occasionally preferring a miserably draughty position for her nest within a yard of the snug retreat you have devised for her. The only thing then to be done is to leave her alone until she has settled down to lay steadily, when you can gradually introduce pieces of broom, &c., so as to shelter her nest as much as possible from wind and rain, taking care to leave the entrance to the nest clear. Young ducks as a rule are the most shy, and you will generally find the older birds only too glad to avail themselves of the well-sheltered nests that you have provided for them.

Nothing can be better for ducks to nest in than the corners of an outhouse or old stable, always provided that you have killed off the rats.

In such places wind and rain can do no harm, and practically every egg hatches out.

The roots of hollow willow trees are favourite nesting places, but a bit dangerous if too near the water's edge. Many birds delight in straw stacks, and if disturbed will simply go up higher, so as to be out of the way of cattle or human beings.

I believe that if you can get your birds to nest in outhouses or stacks, you will get a much better hatch out than elsewhere. Last year one of my ducks took off all her sixteen eggs safely from the corner of a stable, and a bird sitting close to her hatched eleven, without a single bad egg; and we had almost as good results from birds nesting in stacks.

One bird, after being disturbed from her nest in the side of a stack, built at the top, and quite twenty feet from the ground. One fine morning we found her with fourteen young ducklings, and she appeared much annoyed at the assistance which we gave to the family to descend.

If the weather is dry and your nests are well situated, your birds nesting outside may do as well as those described above; but given a week of cold wind and penetrating wet, down goes your average at once.

Last season was a particularly favourable one, and from the first five nests (all sat upon by ducks) no less than sixty-five ducklings hatched out—a highest possible. Naturally this extraordinary percentage was not maintained. We will now suppose that the ducks have begun to lay, an event which may take place any time from the middle of February to the middle of March, after which date they ought to be laying steadily. As they will lay many more eggs than they can successfully hatch, pick up some eggs at intervals from the nests, taking care always to leave two or three in each nest. These eggs should be placed on a large tray or shallow box, lined with hay, sawdust, or other suitable material. It is not advisable to place them touching each other, and care should be taken to turn them daily; if this is done the eggs will keep well for three weeks, by which time you have collected a sufficient number to put under hens, however small your stock may be.

Eggs left in the nest will, of course, not require turning, as the duck does this herself.