Duck free range schedule

[jroyalimage]

so I have 6 ducks. 2 pekins, 4 Swedish. They are coming up on 7 weeks old and have been outside for about 2 weeks now and just this past week I took away their heat lamp. Next week I plan to allow them to fully free range near our large pond. But I have a question. They are at the point now where they know that the small coop is home/safe. The last couple days they have been putting themselves up at night. I usually go out around 8:30-9pm and they are already inside. Once I move the coop by the pond, my fear is that they will have no urge to return to the coop and they’ll stay on the water. Should I maybe do a trial run and try to wrangle them back in the coop after a couple hours. Or should I wait it out and see what they do once it starts getting dark. The pond is quite large so I would have no practical way of going to get them if they decide to stay out in the middle of the water. Or am I just overthinking the whole thing.

 

[Miss Lydia]

It's really hard to say what they will do, I have seen many come on here though that can't get their ducks off the pond once they are let free to go to the water. If they don't decide to come off and go into their coop they will be sitting ducks for predators and many swim and also fly. How big is their coop your talking about 6 large ducks here they will need plenty of room in their coop plus they will need protection which means the coop will need to be closed up before dark.
Maybe you could construct fencing that will go out a ways into the pond and up around the coop so they actually have a pen and only feed them at their coop which would give them the incentive to come home. Like in the evening start training them with something like dried meal worms go into the pen area and start calling them to you shaking the can the mealworms are in. Do this before dark so you can get them inside close the pen gate give treats and put them to bed? To get my flock to come I shake the can and whistle when they are in the top part of their property they can't see me but they can hear really good and they come running.
One member a few years ago had a game camera set up and watched as an owl flew over and snatched one of their ducks right off the pond.