Learn what imprinting is, the importance of imprinting on ducks, and how to do so effectively to help your ducklings thrive!
What is Imprinting?
According to Brittanica, imprinting is, “a form of learning in which a very young animal fixes its attention on the first object with which it has visual, auditory, or tactile experience and after that follows that object. In nature the object is almost invariably a parent; in experiments, other animals and inanimate objects have been used.”
Simply put, the process called imprinting is when a baby bird, in the case of this article ducks, focuses on and learns from an object, typically a parent or caregiver.
In the first days of their lives, also known as the sensitive period, ducklings undergo the process of imprinting, which leaves an impression on their brain telling them who to follow and learn from. Outside of this crucial period, imprinting bonds fail to form. Although the duck’s mom is typically the first object it sees, a duckling can imprint on almost anything that moves, including you!
Why Is Imprinting on Ducks Important?
Imprinting is crucial for the survival of young ducks as it teaches them everything they need to know to survive. If you choose to raise ducklings, you take on the role of their mother.
As a result, it’s crucial they imprint on you so you can show them how to find safety, warmth, food, and even interact with other ducks. Without this learning period, ducks are likely to become outcasts or lack basic survival skills and fail to survive when they leave the nest.
How to Imprint on Ducks
For the most effective imprinting process, it’s best to hatch ducklings yourself. If you buy them you run the risk of missing the crucial sensitive period. That said, the steps to duck imprinting are fairly simple:
- Stand by your ducks as much as possible. Ducklings begin looking for their mothers to start the imprinting process 12 to 36 hours after hatching. To get them to imprint on you, you must be there! After the first day or so, the imprinting process lasts two weeks. The more you’re around your duck, the more likely it will imprint on you.
- Stay visible. Ducks are visual animals, particularly when imprinting. So, it’s not enough just to be next to them. Instead, you’ll want to ensure you’re in their line of site as often as possible.
- Play classical music. Harvard studies have shown that classical music can help achieve successful imprinting with your duckling. There are actually collections of music that you can play to calm animals, here is a good one to try.
- Keep other ducks and animals away. Ducks imprint on animals and moving objects that are roughly the same size and shape as adult ducks when given the choice. However, if there’s nothing else around, they will imprint on humans instead. So, make sure not to have ducks, dogs, cats, or even non-living objects of similar sizes around to interfere when imprinting on ducks.
- Avoid wearing yellow. Ducklings don’t easily imprint on yellow items, likely because they resemble their brothers and sisters.
- Have patience and persistence. Ducks can switch between items during the 14-day imprint window. So, make sure to be consistent, and limit its interaction with anything else as much as possible.
Follow these tips, and after two weeks you should have imprinted on your duck successfully! As a result, it will view you as its mother and will treat you as such for the first year of its life. Afterward, it will still view you as family and will rely on you for the rest of its life.
Here is a video of us imprinting with our first pair of call ducks. They became so attached to us that they would come to the lake with us and never fly away. We could play on the beach and in the lake and they would swim around with us all day long! When we bought some adult ducks that did not imprint with us as ducklings, they flew away and we had to catch them!
More Helpful Resources
- Top 5 Reasons to Raise Backyard Chickens
- Can Ducks and Chickens Live Together in a Coup? Your Complete Guide!
- How to Deter Deer from Your Garden
- On Your Mark, Get Set, Grow: A Guide To Speedy Vegetables
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