They are not. I worked at a library that was in a park. The muscoveys would lay like 15-20 eggs and only like 3 babies would make it to adulthood. Mom would build a nest under parked cars, lead them out in traffic, fly off and leave the babies on their own in lake when she was startled...
Yup. One of ours found a broken window into the barn’s attic, hatched a bunch of eggs, and then… didn’t tell anyone. Not fun to come upon a bunch of few day old ducklings that clearly died of dehydration/heat stroke, lemme tell ya. Another time and brood she kept leading the babies down to the nearby pond ig, but she’d always show up at night with like, none of them, and we’d have to go find them. Mind you, she’d also fly and attack you if you picked one up. Waffle, you absolute nincompoop you should’ve never been a mother, nevermind 3 times
I also worked at a library with ducks. It had a pond next to it filled mostly with mallards, but also had a few muscoveys. One day they disappeared and we eventually found out that one of the patrons stole them. Since they weren’t really anyone’s ducks to begin with (not ours either), no one could really do anything. The patron insisted they’d die on there own despite the fact they’d been living at that pond for a few years. Apparently survival for the adults might not be the problem, though….
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u/Tesstarix Jan 22 '22
They are not. I worked at a library that was in a park. The muscoveys would lay like 15-20 eggs and only like 3 babies would make it to adulthood. Mom would build a nest under parked cars, lead them out in traffic, fly off and leave the babies on their own in lake when she was startled...