To be annoyed someone is feeding my ducks?

[BinarySolo]

I have 3 indian runner ducks in a large pen in my back garden. We live in a row of 4 cottages where only our cottage on the end and the one the other end have a back garden. There are 2 or 3 gardens that back directly onto ours.

This morning when I fed our ducks I noticed some orange pepper in their pen. I didn't feed this and know they don't like it. There was also a lot of picked grass and I've noticed that a fair few other times.

Ok, I know so far it sounds petty but, the duck pen is about 3 meters away from the nearest back garden meaning the neighbour feeding them would need to climb over their wall and physically enter our garden. I know some of the families have young kids and if they'd knocked on my door I'd have happily invited them to see the ducks, in fact I caught one to show the 2 year old that lives at the back of us as they can't quite see the ducks due to a very large hedge.

I'd previously thought the ducks were eating less due to the hot weather but now it seems it's that some one else is also feeding them. They've been consistent layers but we recently had a day with no eggs and are getting one less than usual.

If I'm not being unreasonable then how do I put a stop to this? I've now locked the pen but I'm worried about what else they might be feeding them.

YANBU that is trespassing! It is totally out of line for someone to feed your pets, they have no idea of what you want them to eat, or whether any of them have intolerances.

I think it would be totally fine to go over and say if the children wanted to see your ducks then they can come round (although only if you are totally fine with it as it isn't unreasonable to not want that!), you could explain you control their diet as you eat their eggs (if you do) and want to know exactly what they are eating as it will alter how they lay and the quality of the eggs.

Also I am very jealous, I love runner ducks, we used to have ducks as a child (some of which were runners) and I now live in a flat and am duckless.

Thanks for the response. The problem is that I'm not sure which neighbour it is. I'm tempted to just put up a sign saying 'please don't feed the ducks'. I'm a bit in shock as our garden is very enclosed.

They eat our leftovers so are largely veggie as we are vegetarians. They do forage for worms and I collect slugs and snails for them but I hate the idea of them being fed a crappy sausage or burger. We also limit things like bread as it can bloat them, so I do have a genuine concern that they might be fed 'junk'.

I've only seen the neighbours a handful of times. The one I suspect is doing it also used to throw their rubbish into our garden until we bagged it up and threw it back with a note asking them to respect our garden. (It's a bit of a waste land that were slowly reclaiming but even so the addition of vegetable stalks, egg shells and fire ash was hardly helpful)

Runner ducks are fab. We're hoping to add more soon.

Hope the rogue feeder isn't pinching eggs too! Are they accessible?

YANBU to be concerned about someone feeding your birds, particularly if you're eating the eggs.

Get some geese!

I'm a bit confused - you say you are reclaiming waste land, is it your land within your garden?

Yes, just to clarify it is part of our garden but very overgrown. The house has been rented by several tennants in 6 month slots so the back garden ha pretty muh been reclaimed by nature but it does belong to our house and has clearly defined boundaries with the neighbouring properties. In short, there's no way they could not know they're trespassing.

And yes we do eat the eggs, so I am more concerned. The ducks will lay anywhere in the pen so would be quite visible to the rogue duck feeder.

You could try the vet approved diet sign which my friend did when someone decided to try to feed her cat chicken nuggets repeatedly.

She put a sing in the window saying something along the lines of please don't feed the cat he has a medical condition and needs a prescription diet from the vet.

*sign

Good idea. There are horses near us with a similar sign up.