Well Meaning Mistakes

The Pen is now laying, and the cob is on full housekeeping and guard duties. She will be laying for the next week or so, before sitting permanently to incubate the eggs. I would like to explain to everyone the importance of letting them get on with it, and do not attempt to force food on them when they are trying to lay eggs ! They have been feasting for the past 2 months in order to prepare for the nesting season, what the pen requires we cannot give her. She is eating algae, river weed, and grass roots with silt and minerals, this is all her requirements at this point in time.

I ask those well intentioned people not to inundate the swans or ducks with heaps of bread and vegetables which they cannot and wont eat ! Since last sunday I have seen heaps of floating bread, and today piles of vegetables which are far too large and hard for either the Swans or ducks to tackle .

The carrots I fed the Swans were sliced about 1 to 2 mm thick, so that they bend easily for the Swans consumption, they live on soft vegetation like river weed and grasses. They will not eat anything that is hard, and certainly not anything that is too big to fit into their bill !

Most of the ducks are now away nesting, and the few that remain dont need the amount of food being offered.

Even at the best of times swans are not greedy creatures and will usually only eat maybe a couple of fresh slices of wholemeal bread at any one time.

Heaps of floating bread will only encourage the seagulls rats, and other predators to frequent the area, this puts the swans and ducks at risk ! Please dont do it !

The right time to feed them is during the hard winter months, when it was freezing with ice and snow.