Mallard ducklings when do they fly

Almost as soon as a site is chosen, the female begins the clutch, laying an egg a day for a week or more. Shortly afterwards, the male leaves. Incubation and rearing take prodigious effort and sacrifice. Once the clutch is complete, the female remains on the nest for nearly 23 hours a day, with two short breaks — usually one before 9am and the other after 4pm.

Every half an hour or so, day or night, she shifts position to ensure all eggs are covered. Now there are between six and 13 highly mobile ducklings to care for, each capable of running and feeding themselves within a few hours. The female quickly leads them to water; in these first fraught hours she may call times a minute. Alarm calls summon the brood to regroup, while the female may also distract potential predators with a broken-wing display.

Even so, losses are high. It can be 50 more days before the young are self-sufficient, and thankfully the females can lay up to four clutches a year. Ducks has not yet abandoned them. Internet sources say wild mamma mallards leave at 10 weeks. And last year, she left the brood at 9. This year she apparently knows they still need her. Post Reply Preview.

Edited by waterfowlrescue member 14 years ago. They are capable of flying but it doesnt mean they will fly. Most waterfowl teach the babies to fly over water. When they are on land they prefer to walk, it conserves energy. Mallards are feathered aound 6 weeks and learn to fly after 8 weeks. We release our mallard here at 8 weeks. As the last egg is laid, the female starts to incubate. She sits very tightly, and her brown plumage blends her perfectly to the background.

She rarely leaves the nest apart from short breaks to feed and stretch her legs. About 28 days later the eggs hatch together. This takes about 24 hours. The ducklings stay in the nest for at least 10 hours while they dry and get used to using their legs.

Then, usually in the early morning, the female leads them to water. Bad weather may delay this exodus, but the sooner the ducklings get to water to feed, the better their chances of survival. They cannot survive without their mother, and take days before they fledge and become independent.

The nest is abandoned, although if it is close to the feeding area, the family may continue to use it for brooding and roosting. Where a nest is high up up a tree or on a balcony the birds must first jump to the ground. Being very light and covered in down they usually come to no harm during the fall.

If the landing area is very hard and there is cause for concern, placing something soft like straw or a blanket underneath will cushion the fall. The mother duck knows where the nearest water is to take her young to, although it may be a couple of miles away.

In most instances it is best to leave her alone, because interference can cause extra stress and risk the mother panicking and abandoning her brood. In many instances keeping an eye from the distance and shepherding the family across a danger point, such as a busy road, is all that is needed.

In a few situations, the duck nests where the ducklings will be at real risk on hatching. In such cases the birds could benefit from being caught and taken to water, but this must be well planned and prepared. There is normally no second chance, and if the mother panics and flies away, she may not return to her young. Young ducklings can feed themselves as soon as they reach water, but must learn what is edible. They depend on their mother for warmth for a few days.

She broods them regularly, particularly at night, as they easily chill in cold weather. During the post breeding period ducks can experience nutritional stress. Nutritional stress is a situation where nutrients demanded by the body exceeds the amount of nutrients a duck is able to find and eat. Protein nutrients are extremely important, especially amino acids, the building blocks of life. Perhaps waterfowl select specific foods high in proteins, like bugs, based solely on their nutritional value.

The post breeding period coincides with the time of year when insects are most numerous. Ducks depend on their feathers and old, worn feathers must be replaced. Molting is the process of replacing worn feathers. Ducks molt in the late summer and in the early spring. During the fall ducks molt synchronously, or lose and replace all of their feathers in a short period of time. Synchronous molting renders ducks flightless during a portion of this time thus at a greater risk to predators until the new feathers come in.

Losing and replacing all of one's feathers can take up to two weeks. The new feathers are drab in color and considered a duck's basic plumage. In the early spring just as the breeding season gets underway a partial loss of feathers happens when the male ducks put on their alternate plumage. Feathers are largely made up of proteins and accounts for almost one-third of all protein in the body.

The need for large quantities of high protein food may be one reason that male ducks and unsuccessful nesting hens leave the breeding grounds for special molting grounds far away, thereby reducing competition for limited protein resources. Birds migrate long distances from wintering grounds to breeding areas and back again to the wintering grounds with visual and nonvisual cues.