The ducks are back to going into their coop at night and are settling into a nice easy routine.

The next few videos show me working with the ducks to try and establish a routine and to get them into the coop at night.

The next several videos show what happened the next evening. We tried unsuccessfully to get the ducks into the coop. I then went out in the rain a couple times late at night to check on them and to see where they would go.

And then the training broke. One duck died due to what I think was a mineral deficiency and this caused the remaining ducks to go back to acting like they were never trained. We then needed to start all over with the training.
I now occasionally supplement with a full spectrum mineral supplement water additive and have have no further health issues.

The ducks are learning to get in the coop and the dogs are learning to get along with the ducks. I discuss how I was able to coax the ducks up out of the pond and into the coop and get them to respond to a call. I also talk about working with livestock guardian dogs, 2 young Great Pyrenees in this case, to get them used to protecting an animal they've never seen before.

I had great success training chickens to go into a coop at night after leaving them in the coop for several days and feeding and watering them in the coop. Ducks are a different animal. The following videos show the first night of trying to get them out of the pond and into the coop.

After 3 days of being cooped up to get the ducks trained to the coop, we let the ducks loose near the pond. The dogs seemed to be ok with them and the ducks loved being in a real body of water.

The ducks are in their moveable shelter and out on grass. Plus a view of the large bottom dam that the ducks will help seal with their manure.

There are now 2 dams on the farm which are holding significant bodies of water and I need to use them in my food systems. I decided to get some ducks to see how well they adapt to my farming methods. I purchased 33 Khaki Campbell ducklings from Meyer Hatchery as they are the 2nd best in the world at egg production according to the information I saw on line. I wanted to get the hybrid layers from Metzer Farms but they weren't going to be available for a month and winter was getting closer. Here is a video showing the ducklings in the brooder shortly after they arrived from the post office.