20 Dec 2007, 5:24 pm
20 Dec 2007, 7:17 pm
Well ducks are one of my obsessions. Most domestic duck are derived from mallard apart from Muscovy. Wild mallards and domestic do breed.
I think it is more a case of if you are going to feed the ducks don't feed them bread and other crap, It has quite a bit of salt in it for one. The article is good advice but not the whole picture.
It is quite hard to feed ducks without Canada geese or like coming up and pushing them out the way (so they can get obese 
). there is a natural pecking order. Before someone jumps on there is actually very little distinction between 'ducks', 'geese' and 'swans' they share the same ancestry. Quite a lot of birds that are given the duck label are in fact older.
There are quite a few wild ducks that barely fly also. Most of them are in the southern hemisphere, where the magpie goose is. That is a bird that is older than ducks, geese and swans and has partially webbed feet.
21 Dec 2007, 3:32 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallard#_note-7
Mallards form pairs only until the female lays eggs, at which time she is left by the male. The clutch is 8–13 eggs, which are incubated for 27–28 days to hatching with 50–60 days to fledging. The ducklings are precocial, and can swim and feed themselves on insects as soon as they hatch, although they stay near the female for protection. Young ducklings are not naturally waterproof and rely on the mother to provide waterproofing. Mallards also have rates of male-male sexual activity that are unusually high for birds. In some cases, as many as 19% of pairs in a Mallard population are male-male homosexual[7].
When they pair off with mating partners, often one or several drakes will end up "left out". This group will sometimes target an isolated female duck — chasing, pestering and pecking at her until she weakens (a phenomenon referred to by researchers as rape flight), at which point each male will take turns copulating with the female. Male Mallards will also occasionally chase other males in the same way. (In one documented case, a male Mallard copulated with another male he was chasing after it had been killed when it flew into a glass window[8].
haha ...interesting
These flying mallard ducks look exactly like the flightless domestic ducks that were in my old school's garden. You can't even tell the difference but I think the mallard have larger wings.
21 Dec 2007, 5:51 pm
richardbenson
Xfractor Card #351
Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 13,553
Location: Leave only a footprint behind
21 Dec 2007, 9:35 pm
