mallard ducklings for sale £3.80

[Lewis Murray]

300 total available, week old ducklings for sale. i have more than what i need, realising so many people are short of birds this year wondered if anyone else wanted them. based in the north west (Knott end on sea, Poulton le Fylde). can deliver within reason but would prefer for purchaser to collect. 

 

[Agriv8]

Just finding out if we can find a home for them ?

Agriv8

[Lewis Murray]

they are still for sale, if someone wants them 👌

[Ian willetts]

Get them snapped up if not for shooting for breeding stock the way things are going good luck with the 

[jall25]

7 hours ago, Ian willetts said:

Get them snapped up if not for shooting for breeding stock the way things are going good luck with the 

Better off improving your pond - putting u a few duck tubes

They breed like rabbits and better for everything else too

[Lewis Murray]

2 hours ago, jall25 said:

Better off improving your pond - putting u a few duck tubes

They breed like rabbits and better for everything else too

 extremely naïve but i'll bite... 1. what your suggesting is fine if you just want to do a duck flight occasionally once or twice a year, but to do a duck drive (which is what reared mallard are for...)with your idea if we do the maths.... theoretically  the average duckling mortality rate in pens under perfect conditions (in labs and specialist facilities) is 15% minimum, in the wild from studies they believe chick mortality is around 45-60% but even if we say the conditions are bordering perfect and mortality is only 30% that die. mallard usually in the wild have 6 ducklings hatch avg each and with a 30% mortality rate.... to have 300 new ducks on your pond you would need 71 pairs ish of ducks breeding on your pond or 142 total ducks (and given that there is always more males than females and some hens are duds you would need to have at least 160-172 ducks (some really good wildfowling marshes miles long don't even have that many ducks) total just to have 71 breeding pairs...... and wild ducks are territorial in nesting, closest I've seen two ducks nesting is around 3 meters apart so you would need a pond that has a bank with a 213m perimeter for tubes along the bank..... 😂 and all this just to have 1 duck drive.... 2. that's not including the price of improvements (digger, fuel) and feed etc.... not to mention wild birds will just fu## off the minute you shoot them a couple times and avoid the pond making the drive extremely short (one or two shots for a couple guns then they're gone and the drives over ) making the drive pretty much useless and it gets worse as the season goes on. 3+it means youd have to wait till next season for them to breed to even shoot anything....4.+ you'd have to spend money anyway and waste time building tubes that anyone that's made lots of them will tell you are a complete pain in the ****....

they're ducks not rabbits, they breed once a year and they're sometimes just as fragile as rearing and releasing pheasants, you wouldn't say " oh just put some nesting boxes down and you'll have enough pheasants to do a full pheasant drive for the season" when nobody around you has put them down...if mallard weren't released there wouldn't be any wild in most of the country and they'd be as rare as shovelers nationally (dabbling ducks with the same habitat, feeding and arguably breeding success but we don't release them and as a result they're amber listed and none existent except in isolated areas even though alot migrate in......)  😂

rant over, but sorry i had to correct a comment like that 😂

[London Best]

Agree 100% with your first paragraph, but your second paragraph with your comparison with shovelers is just wrong. Mallard are circumpolar in the Northern hemisphere and the wild population in U.K. does not rely on reared birds. 
And, in my opinion, nothing is going to get shooting banned quicker than reared duck drives. Reared duck do not fly like wild duck and, as you pointed out yourself, keep returning to their pond, often whilst still being shot at. 
Just my opinion, but personally I won’t shoot at them.

[Lewis Murray]

21 minutes ago, London Best said:

Agree 100% with your first paragraph, but your second paragraph with your comparison with shovelers is just wrong. Mallard are circumpolar in the Northern hemisphere and the wild population in U.K. does not rely on reared birds. 
And, in my opinion, nothing is going to get shooting banned quicker than reared duck drives. Reared duck do not fly like wild duck and, as you pointed out yourself, keep returning to their pond, often whilst still being shot at. 
Just my opinion, but personally I won’t shoot at them.

i get what you're saying but to explain my point, the last time i looked at it was 2019 so that's the figures i have in my head, the annual trend of release of reared mallard that year was over  400,000 (somewhere around 450,000), if you look at the BTO and the RSPB had the total breeding population recorded that year was roughly 61,000-146,000pairs . the return rate for shoots (from the duck drives I've heard is roughly 60%) which although conjecture would equate to around 172,000 birds left to their own devices post season... can you honestly say the mallard population does not rely on introduced birds....say if we stopped introducing mallard and everyone with a flight pond and wildfowlers kept shooting them like they do now, as they do with shoveler (as per my example) which are annually in decline (went from over 1100 pairs in 2013- 700 pairs nationally this summer (BTO) who are struggling even with huge natural migratory introductions annually, and  mallard couldn't even benefit from migratory introductions as they're primarily a residential population. the mallard would, i imagine if we stopped releasing would adopt a similar distribution to the shoveler and pintail (wild birds that both follow similar trends in distribution gravitate to small pockets primarily in the southeast of England and the isolated north.at least that's my opinion 

i would argue its the 80-90 yard birds that get pricked 70% of the time and 500-600 bird pheasant days that look a hell of alot worse, like every pheasant keeper catching up pheasants outside of the season, its illegal to catch pheasants after January yet every keeper does it and other small stuff that makes shooting look bad so its horses for courses i guess....to each their own 😂 

[jall25]

7 hours ago, Lewis Murray said:

 extremely naïve but i'll bite... 1. what your suggesting is fine if you just want to do a duck flight occasionally once or twice a year, but to do a duck drive (which is what reared mallard are for...)with your idea if we do the maths.... theoretically  the average duckling mortality rate in pens under perfect conditions (in labs and specialist facilities) is 15% minimum, in the wild from studies they believe chick mortality is around 45-60% but even if we say the conditions are bordering perfect and mortality is only 30% that die. mallard usually in the wild have 6 ducklings hatch avg each and with a 30% mortality rate.... to have 300 new ducks on your pond you would need 71 pairs ish of ducks breeding on your pond or 142 total ducks (and given that there is always more males than females and some hens are duds you would need to have at least 160-172 ducks (some really good wildfowling marshes miles long don't even have that many ducks) total just to have 71 breeding pairs...... and wild ducks are territorial in nesting, closest I've seen two ducks nesting is around 3 meters apart so you would need a pond that has a bank with a 213m perimeter for tubes along the bank..... 😂 and all this just to have 1 duck drive.... 2. that's not including the price of improvements (digger, fuel) and feed etc.... not to mention wild birds will just fu## off the minute you shoot them a couple times and avoid the pond making the drive extremely short (one or two shots for a couple guns then they're gone and the drives over ) making the drive pretty much useless and it gets worse as the season goes on. 3+it means youd have to wait till next season for them to breed to even shoot anything....4.+ you'd have to spend money anyway and waste time building tubes that anyone that's made lots of them will tell you are a complete pain in the ****....

they're ducks not rabbits, they breed once a year and they're sometimes just as fragile as rearing and releasing pheasants, you wouldn't say " oh just put some nesting boxes down and you'll have enough pheasants to do a full pheasant drive for the season" when nobody around you has put them down...if mallard weren't released there wouldn't be any wild in most of the country and they'd be as rare as shovelers nationally (dabbling ducks with the same habitat, feeding and arguably breeding success but we don't release them and as a result they're amber listed and none existent except in isolated areas even though alot migrate in......)  😂

rant over, but sorry i had to correct a comment like that 😂

 

I feel sorry for you - so a gentle bite back

Luckily i do have a digger and the fuel

Luckily i have dug over 20 ponds

Luckily my duck tubes are circa at 50 percent occupany and i have over 40 up

Luckily i only want to flight them for our beaters and helpers 5/6 times a year and shoot 20 ish or enough for a brace a man

Luckily i dont mind waiting "till next season" and seeing the fruits of my labours blossom 

Luckily the habitat i have provided allows plenty of nesting cover

Luckily i am out 5/6 nights a weeks controlling foxes / and everyday corvids 

Luckily i have hundreds and hundreds of wild ducks

And finally luckily i would rather not shoot duck at all if the only option is reared duck !

Naive

Rant over

 

[Lewis Murray]

5 minutes ago, jall25 said:

 

I feel sorry for you - so a gentle bite back

Luckily i do have a digger and the fuel

Luckily i have dug over 20 ponds

Luckily my duck tubes are circa at 50 percent occupany and i have over 40 up

Luckily i only want to flight them for our beaters and helpers 5/6 times a year and shoot 20 ish or enough for a brace a man

Luckily i dont mind waiting "till next season" and seeing the fruits of my labours blossom 

Luckily the habitat i have provided allows plenty of nesting cover

Luckily i am out 5/6 nights a weeks controlling foxes / and everyday corvids 

Luckily i have hundreds and hundreds of wild ducks

And finally luckily i would rather not shoot duck at all if the only option is reared duck !

Naive

Rant over

 

Thanks for the rant but you’ve just Proved my point, “1. what your suggesting is fine if you just want to do a duck flight occasionally once or twice a year, but to do a duck drive (which is what reared mallard are for...)” never said you couldn’t flight doing the tubes and natural approach but you couldn’t do regular drives for a syndicate shoot …not sure what that was even about but What you have or want to shoot is irrelevant to me…but thanks for explaining your situation I guess, lucky you 😂 you’ve somehow made this about you, you told a syndicate shoot who want to do regular drives (after being offered duck since they’re pheasant order got cancelled ….to put up bloody nesting boxes and shoot the year from that…surely you realise thats wrong ? …I’m sticking with “naive” if you think that’s good advice 😂😂 

[jall25]

4 hours ago, Lewis Murray said:

i get what you're saying but to explain my point, the last time i looked at it was 2019 so that's the figures i have in my head, the annual trend of release of reared mallard that year was over  400,000 (somewhere around 450,000), if you look at the BTO and the RSPB had the total breeding population recorded that year was roughly 61,000-146,000pairs . the return rate for shoots (from the duck drives I've heard is roughly 60%) which although conjecture would equate to around 172,000 birds left to their own devices post season... can you honestly say the mallard population does not rely on introduced birds....say if we stopped introducing mallard and everyone with a flight pond and wildfowlers kept shooting them like they do now, as they do with shoveler (as per my example) which are annually in decline (went from over 1100 pairs in 2013- 700 pairs nationally this summer (BTO) who are struggling even with huge natural migratory introductions annually, and  mallard couldn't even benefit from migratory introductions as they're primarily a residential population. the mallard would, i imagine if we stopped releasing would adopt a similar distribution to the shoveler and pintail (wild birds that both follow similar trends in distribution gravitate to small pockets primarily in the southeast of England and the isolated north.at least that's my opinion 

i would argue its the 80-90 yard birds that get pricked 70% of the time and 500-600 bird pheasant days that look a hell of alot worse, like every pheasant keeper catching up pheasants outside of the season, its illegal to catch pheasants after January yet every keeper does it and other small stuff that makes shooting look bad so its horses for courses i guess....to each their own 😂 

 

I think the release of mallard hinders the wild populations - in my opinion as they are far "tamer" they are less likely to be disturbed from ponds and eat more of the food available - they tend to bully the wild population and indeed stop them breeding. 

As is widely accepted - maybe not by you however - released ducks taking breeding space from wild ducks do not make great parents either and so the spiral continues. 

Anyone shooting birds at 80/90 yards should be asked to slip there gun and never return - whether that is a pigeon, a crow or a mallard.

[jall25]

3 minutes ago, Lewis Murray said:

Thanks for the rant but you’ve just Proved my point, “1. what your suggesting is fine if you just want to do a duck flight occasionally once or twice a year, but to do a duck drive (which is what reared mallard are for...)” never said you couldn’t flight doing the tubes and natural approach but you couldn’t do regular drives for a syndicate shoot …not sure what that was even about but What you have or want to shoot is irrelevant to me…but thanks for explaining your situation I guess, lucky you 😂 you’ve somehow made this about you, you told a syndicate shoot who want to do regular drives (after being offered duck since they’re pheasant order got cancelled ….to put up bloody nesting boxes and shoot the year from that…surely you realise thats wrong ? …I’m sticking with “naive” if you think that’s good advice 😂😂 

Nothing to do with me

If reared duck is your idea of shooting poor you 

[Lewis Murray]

1 minute ago, jall25 said:

 

I think the release of mallard hinders the wild populations - in my opinion as they are far "tamer" they are less likely to be disturbed from ponds and eat more of the food available - they tend to bully the wild population and indeed stop them breeding. 

As is widely accepted - maybe not by you however - released ducks taking breeding space from wild ducks do not make great parents either and so the spiral continues. 

Anyone shooting birds at 80/90 yards should be asked to slip there gun and never return - whether that is a pigeon, a crow or a mallard.

I get what you’re saying, but it’s wild mallard that are especially territorial during nesting, but I concede the point about competition for food you are right, but at this point I believe most of what’s wild now is simply what was released a season or two ago and was smart enough to move. But if you look at the population numbers there is no chance without releasing birds that you could shoot them sustainably (look at the shoveler and pintail)…it should really be a simple fact at this point 

Then if it were up to you 70% of people wouldn’t shoot pheasants…”high stratospheric birds” is pretty much in every shooting add these days 🤷‍♂️

[Lewis Murray]

5 minutes ago, jall25 said:

Nothing to do with me

If reared duck is your idea of shooting poor you 

you literally made it about you...."luckily i have..." i wont shoot..." surely you see it this was about getting a syndicate something they could shoot this year since they're short of birds ....😂 everyone is short of birds since pheasant chicks are £10 each, im trying to help shoots out by offering what i have and can spare for £3.80 when they're £5.60 to buy at every other game farm around me, so that people have something to do drives with and make money and keep they're leases. and all this bother from you for simply pointing out that you telling him who is 500-600 birds short this year.... "just put some nesting tubes in and improve your ponds" was not good advice in the slightest.. especially when its a proper shoot and not just flighting?  come on man just read it back 😂you're right duck done poorly is bad, but pushed from one pond to another with the guns in the middle is exactly like a pheasant drive. if you don't shoot duck then great for you again though what you think is irrelevant in this, at times like these i know plenty of shoots are relying on them just to get them through the season since nobody is rich enough to buy pheasants 😂

[jall25]

4 hours ago, Lewis Murray said:

I get what you’re saying, but it’s wild mallard that are especially territorial during nesting, but I concede the point about competition for food you are right, but at this point I believe most of what’s wild now is simply what was released a season or two ago and was smart enough to move. But if you look at the population numbers there is no chance without releasing birds that you could shoot them sustainably (look at the shoveler and pintail)…it should really be a simple fact at this point 

Then if it were up to you 70% of people wouldn’t shoot pheasants…”high stratospheric birds” is pretty much in every shooting add these days 🤷‍♂️

It really isnt

 

[jall25]

3 hours ago, Lewis Murray said:

you literally made it about you...."luckily i have..." i wont shoot..." surely you see it this was about getting a syndicate something they could shoot this year since they're short of birds ....😂 everyone is short of birds since pheasant chicks are £10 each, im trying to help shoots out by offering what i have and can spare for £3.80 when they're £5.60 to buy at every other game farm around me, so that people have something to do drives with and make money and keep they're leases. and all this bother from you for simply pointing out that you telling him who is 500-600 birds short this year.... "just put some nesting tubes in and improve your ponds" was not good advice in the slightest.. especially when its a proper shoot and not just flighting?  come on man just read it back 😂you're right duck done poorly is bad, but pushed from one pond to another with the guns in the middle is exactly like a pheasant drive. if you don't shoot duck then great for you again though what you think is irrelevant in this, at times like these i know plenty of shoots are relying on them just to get them through the season since nobody is rich enough to buy pheasants 😂

I get that - but equally cut your cloth accordingly - and in my opinion- yes my opinion so you can quote me - dont just shoot ducks as a replacement for pheasant - They are not alike - reared ducks fly round and round and round - if they will fly - sad to see in so many cases. Pheasants are over and gone 

But the one point i do concede is this is a selling thread and i apologise for disrupting that. 

[Lewis Murray]

14 hours ago, jall25 said:

I get that - but equally cut your cloth accordingly - and in my opinion- yes my opinion so you can quote me - dont just shoot ducks as a replacement for pheasant - They are not alike - reared ducks fly round and round and round - if they will fly - sad to see in so many cases. Pheasants are over and gone 

But the one point i do concede is this is a selling thread and i apologise for disrupting that. 

I’ll be honest and this will **** a lot of people off, but if you push ducks from one pond to another or whistle feed them off to another area/pond and drive them back with the guns in the middle for one pass there is very little difference from a pheasant other than speed of travel. 
you can fit more ducks per m2 of ground than pheasants, they’re cheaper, need less beaters (can do a drive huge drive with 3 beaters) , they’re more efficient putting on weight, they’re waterproof/can tolerate bad weather, no need for forestry, you don’t need a gradient to produce higher birds, they don’t migrate as much as pheasants do, returns are always better etc etc

as much as I love pheasants every shoot I’ve dealt with order more and more ducks every year and less and less pheasants and more shoots are doing just duck days, it’s perhaps not a great thing but ducks may not be traditionally the done and I’m gonna guess you’re an older gentleman and you’ll hate this but thing but they will soon be just as popular as pheasants with the new crowd of younger keepers and the younger generation of shooters on the whole don’t care what they shoot as long as it’s high and they look good so ducks are perfect for that, it’s sad but true that ducks are more often than not done wrong to cater to the new crowd that want to shoot 20-30 birds each per drive 🤷‍♂️

[jall25]

1 hour ago, Lewis Murray said:

I’ll be honest and this will **** a lot of people off, but if you push ducks from one pond to another or whistle feed them off to another area/pond and drive them back with the guns in the middle for one pass there is very little difference from a pheasant other than speed of travel. 
you can fit more ducks per m2 of ground than pheasants, they’re cheaper, need less beaters (can do a drive huge drive with 3 beaters) , they’re more efficient putting on weight, they’re waterproof/can tolerate bad weather, no need for forestry, you don’t need a gradient to produce higher birds, they don’t migrate as much as pheasants do, returns are always better etc etc

as much as I love pheasants every shoot I’ve dealt with order more and more ducks every year and less and less pheasants and more shoots are doing just duck days, it’s perhaps not a great thing but ducks may not be traditionally the done and I’m gonna guess you’re an older gentleman and you’ll hate this but thing but they will soon be just as popular as pheasants with the new crowd of younger keepers and the younger generation of shooters on the whole don’t care what they shoot as long as it’s high and they look good so ducks are perfect for that, it’s sad but true that ducks are more often than not done wrong to cater to the new crowd that want to shoot 20-30 birds each per drive 🤷‍♂️

I thought we had stopped this

To keep trying to justify it surely must even tell you something about the ethics of it

I am actually probably a younger chap and have a syndicate of many ages featuring many teens and mid twenties.

It is things like 20/30 ducks each a drive that will end shooting 

As i said before - i feel sorry for you