Oh, I forgot to say that we have them a nice pond and we know of a snake and turtle seen on the pond dam in the last 2 days. I'm worried about my babies! Yesterday I was out roaming and heard one of the ducks struggling out on the water. It sounded like one was hurt and I was afraid to go look to see what was going on. They we all alright but didn't go back into the pond for quite some time that afternoon.

Snapping turtles will pull ducks down and drown them. Snakes can eat ducklings. I'd look next time you hear something so that you know what you're dealing with.

Turtles are delicious if prepared properly!
And, Yes, they will snap at your ducks.

Go to your pond sit quietly youll see a big head come up,Snapper.They have traps to catch snappers.You put chicken on back of trap,Turtle goes in door shuts behind him.You dont want to use the string & hook if you have ducks.Every year we get about 6..turtles about 12" around or bigger.When we bought the farm we had a 2' round turtle.
We raise swans and the turtles usually go after the young to a certain size.We use to fence off an area.thinking now turtle cant get them.Nooooooo they climb fences.,So we keep them out till the swan gets nice size then release them.Occasionally theyll pull under or attack an adult but thats rare.

Snapping turtles will go after ducklings. Water snakes pose no threat to ducklings.

Thanks for the info. I thought the turtles would pose a bigger threat to the ducks than snakes, but I wasn't sure. Our ducks have not been back into the pond since the episode last week. We've set big tubs out on the pond bank for them to groom and play in. My husband is going to do some turtle hunting so our babies can get back into the pond.
Sadly, we lost our beautiful Daffey, a black cayuga, to one of the neighbor's dogs last Tuesday morning. We called the neighbor and they have been chaining their dogs up, but the ducks were so scared that they have been hiding in the tall grass in the mornings. They are doing better and haven't seemed to be as scared the last couple of days.
Thanks again for the input!

Renee

Alot of times if theres a stream near pond thats where turtles get in .Also It may not help just turtle hunting then put ducklings back in,Turtles come all summer,mostly in spring to mate.
Maybe you should do like we did.We put up a fence, wire,about 3' high .We went in the water too so the cygnets could get in water and get up on bank.

I think there may be a very large snapper that's bothering our ducks. They seemed to be enjoying the pond very much until that big snapper came around. Good idea about the fence, although someone commented above about seeing the turtles climbing over to get to the water.

I had 1 turtle climb the fence once.And Ive had it there along time.He had trouble getting to the little swans because they were on land.I was just saying they can climb fences so beware.
But as far as that goes big large mouth bass eat ducklings too.so a fence would help alot.