AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

I recently moved 4 ducklings into my front yard on their own. They are 4.5 weeks old. They'd spent a couple of days exploring their new area and seemed quite comfortable hanging around their sleeping/food/water area under a shrubby kind of tree. I've been shutting them in a large storage box over night and letting them out in the mornings. However yesterday, I was at work all afternoon/evening, so I was hoping that my partner would shut them in their box. When I got home, I found out that he hadn't shut them in there and I couldn't find them anywhere! I looked around with a torch thinking maybe they'd found some cosy sheltered spot amongst the garden to sleep instead of their box. After a bit I decided that I wasn't going to find them and hopefully they'd come out in the morning and be wandering around as usual. But there's still no sign of any of them and now I'm really worried. What could've happened in the 4hrs between when my partner got home and when I got home? On night fall I would think they'd be settling down somewhere not off exploring and getting lost or breaking out of my yard. If a predator came in and found them I would think there'd be some sign of foul play and not for them all to be gone. I have a pretty secure yard, there's only a small gap in my front gate that they might've gotten out of, but they'd never been up to that part of the yard before. The only other thing I can think of is that someone's come into my yard and stolen them, except that also seems unlikely since a) someone was home, and b) you can't really see into my yard from outside the fence, so passers by wouldn't even know they were there.

What are your thoughts? Is it worth holding out hope that they'll turn up somewhere?

I think my partner feels kinda bad that he didn't shut them in now. He thought they'd be fine.

I just want my ducklings back

Sorry to hear about your missing ducklings - I hope they turn up!

Fingers crossed for you it may just surprise you

Some good news! 3 of them turned up from somewhere, don't know what happened to the other one, I'm guessing it's nothing good though

That is excellent news I am so pleased for you 3 out of 4 is good lets hope the 4 turns up but I fear not now the other are back

How big were they? I wonder if you had an eagle or a hawk take one which made the others hide out of fright?

I though similar that something had chased them and they were just hiding until they calmed down

Good to get three back. 4.5 wks is young and vulnerable. I usually wait till mine are feathered up 6-7weeks at least.

Well number 4 still hasn't shown up, so I'm guessing it's not going to be coming back. Since they went missing around night fall, my guess would be a neighbourhood cat or an owl or possibly a snake. I only put them out on their own because the temperatures are warm enough and I needed the pen they were living in to isolate one of my drakes. There's plenty of cover for them to keep out of harms way during the day, but I'm still locking them up at night until they're bigger.

I would bet it was the cat