Herding ducks and geese

There aren't many videos around about how to herd ducks.
The few I have found use a herding stick to tap the ducks
from behind, and to keep them in a group.

I was thinking... isn't this backwards?
Wouldn't the proper way to get ducks from one area to another be...
to walk in front of them... and to slightly wag the stick down low...
as if saying, "come this way, come this way" -- ?

Maybe I've been reading too much about animal enslavement.

If we were really the masters around this joint
wouldn't we be able to figure out how to herd and control our animals
without FORCE ?? without INTIMIDATION ?? without CRUELTY ??
without INSULTING THEIR DIGNITY ??

It seems to me that domesticated animals just need to know
what it is that is expected of them. So... we should not be so confusing to them.
We can train our animals... and they will get joy from being part of your joy.
We just have to train ourselves... to know how to train THEM.

That is a beautiful thing... a beautiful thing.

The easy way to move any animal is to have some yummy food around that they're really hooked on....for most livestock this will be grain. Give them a little every day or few to let them know what it's about, shake it in a bucket, etc. Then you just get out your bucket with some in there and shake it and they will follow you wherever you want them to go. Anything else is a pain in the butt.....

LOL, when I saw the title I was going to say that herding is best done from in front--with a bucket of munchies--but Burra beat me to it! Love that those are muscovies...they're a laid back breed of duck, and very food oriented.

Our ducks and geese come sprinting and honking when I break out the corn scratch. If there are stragglers, our english shepherd pup is more than happy to tell them where they need to go

+1 to the ES pup, invaluable homestead partner.

Okay so meaning no offense - but since you bring it up - yes I think you have been reading a little bit to much about animal enslavement. I've worked with alot of poultry over the last five years - let me use my current situation to explain

so I have about a dozen birds (chickens geese and a duck) on a little less the an acre. They free range - no fences - and they more or less stick around. Generally when I want to move them anywhere (say they are hanging out to near the road) I just walk in a 'loop' and get myself behind them - which is to say the way I DON'T want them to go - a flanking manuever - you understand? and then just walk towards them 'steering' them the way I want them to go making gentle shoeing motions with my hands - it works - Now my flock loves to hang out and comes when I call - so yes you can get you're birds to do that.

But here's the deal. Birds are not rational and the world is a scary place. If you are trying to move your flock (and I've dealt with 3 or 4 dozen birds at a time) and there is some condition that makes them not want to go (a dog - the confinement of a crate so they can be moved) there's no way you're going to get them to go against their instincts without triggering an even more visceral response.

so

Using two bambo (or similar) rods you can extend your reach and steer a flock virtually anywhere. With two or three people doing you can wrangle any number in virtually any condition (flash storms anyone? yeah = I've done that and this method works). Just make shoeing and waving motions to tell the bird which way not to go. Slow sweeps and quick snaps. Lean into your actions with your entire body if its necessary to move the flock. Do it calmly but purposefully and without hesitation. The flock moves as a flock - you can steer them anywhere.

Like I said, my birds trust me - they will follow me - but I would never rely on trust alone to manage them. Hope that helps

Linda Sefcik wrote:enslavement.

If we were really the masters around this joint
wouldn't we be able to figure out how to herd and control our animals
without FORCE ?? without INTIMIDATION ?? without CRUELTY ??
without INSULTING THEIR DIGNITY ??

it's easier then that.. our little ducks have eaten all the snails.. in the area's they are in.. so we setup a snail farm (basically couple of logs we wet down).. and a couple of worms.. in a box. when we shake the box. the snails make a clack clack clack sounds... the ducks go batcrazy for snails and follow we drop the snails in the wake and they move to the area we want

find the food that makes them go crazy.. they follow you anywhere .. mind you they can get very annoying if they dont get said food but no system is perfect

Just saw this and thought it belonged here...

Like most things "it depends".

Geese are easy, MOST of the time. Our Toluse can be moved anywhere, we may have to push them at first to get momentum, then you walk though the gaggle and call "goose, goose, goose" and they pretty much follow anywhere you want to take them. Stop where you want them and give them time to get interested in something like lush grass and sneak off, they will stay in that area for us for hours with no fences or anything.

Right up until our Girl we call #5 had babies! The gaggle who are pretty mean to strangers even turned on me. I had to be paternal to regain control (in goose management you be paternal by picking up and hold aggressive geese like a football, yes I am serious, by like a football I mean cradled in the crook of one arm). They were a-holes for two weeks, jerks for two more, now the goslings are in the ugly ducking phase and they are mostly back to normal.

I have actually trained all our birds with goodies to respond to their own name, goose goose goose, chick chick chick, duck duck duck, etc. This way if I have my chickens and geese free ranging in my west pasture I can go to the gate and say "goose goose goose" the gaggle will come form the furthermost areas, right though the gate and as long as the chicks are not right at the gate no worries of them getting out, they are NOT ALLOWED on the main property without containment, too much damage to allow uncontrolled chicks. But the ducks and geese I let roam, they are soft on the land. I just need to fence one garden pond they keep pooping in.

Ducks? Well we are working on that, we have to push them places but they always get yummies when they get to the point we want them at. We are trying to get them to associate being moved with "good things" but good things are not always treats from hand. It might be a fresh stock tank of cool water on a hot day, a fresh sythed area teaming with lush low grass and easy to snap up hoppers.

So far if 1 is super easy and 5 is impossible, I would rate leading geese a 1 if started out right and if they don't have babies under wing. Ducks are a 3! They do exactly what you want at times but if they have a place they want to go stuck in their little heads, you can offer all the treats you want, they eat what they want then 180 and hall feathered ass!

I will say this now keeping chicks, ducks and geese. I prefer ducks and geese. Dorothy wants to sell eggs, if we can build a duck egg market in time, there may be few to any chickens here long term. I don't dislike chicks mind you, ducks are just more fun and do a LOT less damage on the land. Sure you can harness chicken power with scratching but that seems to be best done with tractoring/paddocking and can be done on a 3 acre property quite well with two or three meat cycles per year.

Why do we think WE need to be in front? I herd the geese from the rear, letting them take the lead and letting the gander think HE'S in charge. The goose is more comfortable with this and will listen to the gander more when I'm not around. They pretty much put themselves back in the pen, I just guide them. Everybody wins.

I use a border collie to herd our ducks and chickens.

I've been looking on-line for information on how far geese can be herded in a day -- I know they used to be herded to market; they even dipped their feet in warm tar and then in sand or small gravel to give them some protection from the roads.  But it's been quite a while since I read about it, and I can't remember how far they were able to move them in one day.  (No, I do not plan on herding geese, but I do plan to write a story in which herded geese will figure largely.)

Kathleen

According to the wikki article about drover's roads

Geese, turkeys, pigs, and horses were also driven to markets, and in large quantities to London. Cattle were fitted with iron shoes, geese were fitted with boots to protect their feet, and the feet of turkeys were tarred and sanded.[13] Daniel Defoe recorded that 150,000 turkeys were driven from East Anglia to London each year, the journey taking three months to complete.[13] There is a record[full citation needed] of a wager in 1740 on whether geese or turkeys would travel faster – the winner being the geese which could graze as they moved, while the turkeys had to stop to be fed.

It doesn't say which bit of East Anglia but if you assume a ballpark figure of a hundred miles, that's only a mile or so a day.  Which seems not very much to me.

There's apparently a movie called Singlton's Pluck which might have useful info.

Thank you.  I thought for sure they could go further in a day - I know in Southeast Asia where they herd ducks to and from the fields every day, they go up to three miles, though I don't know if that is each way, or round trip.

Liz Hoxie wrote:Why do we think WE need to be in front? I herd the geese from the rear, letting them take the lead and letting the gander think HE'S in charge.

This works if the birds know where they're going. I have Khaki ducks who overnight in a secure pen, but have portable fencing that moves every 2-3 days. They know they'll get some soaked wheat berries when they get to the run area in the morning, so they're motivated by that as well as the chance to forage for slugs and worms. (The wheat berries are important for their Vit B levels, so it's a bonus that they adore them.)
If I'm training a new group, I try to make it a "short" trip and have some spare fencing to guide them. If the run only moves a section over or further, they are pretty good. If it moves a long way, they understandably don't know where they're going and "leading" helps. Bedtime is normally easy - I open the gate and they run for home.

However, I always carry a plastic hockey stick. We call this "Happy Chicken Farm Hockey Practice"! It does what is suggested above - it extends my arm, but it also has the larger bit down at their eye level. If someone accidentally heads off in the totally wrong direction, I can even toss it past them and they'll usually turn. This is a purely non-contact form of Stick Handling Practice, but when Hubby's Hockey player friend visited, he thought it was hilarious, but amazed how effectively  it works!