Unfortunately, this behavior is considered imprinting. The cygnets have imprinted upon you because you raised them from such a young age and now they think you are swan mom and they are humans. You will probably never be able to change this behavior. If you move them to another home, they will ultimately be killed by a predator, possibly another human that they walk up to and think they can trust or domestic animals.

The best thing that can be done is to take them down to the pond in the morning, feed them and place food in the water. If they come to the barn during the daytime, let them spend some time near the geese and then walk them back to the pond for an afternoon dip. You can do this several times a day and late afternoon to ensure that they get pond time.

Near the barn, place their food in flat pan of water raised off the ground to prevent pests such as ants and rats. Watch to see that they eat the mixture of cracked corn and layer pellets to ensure that they get ample nutrition. The birds will eat aquatic vegetation and grass as they need, but you can also supplement their food with lettuce.

At night, we would strongly suggest you bring them inside the barn in an enclosed pen (so that nothing can dig under or climb into the pen) a couple hours prior to dusk. If something were to get into the barn, an enclosed pen will be their best protection. The birds will need to have a raised pan of water with food (again to remove pests). They do not need water to sit or bathe in at night so you don't need to keep them in the pond or offer a kiddie pool at night.

At dusk and nighttime, predators run and feed and the little ones were not trained by a swan mom on how to elude predators and fight to stay alive. By bringing them in at night, you will increase the probability of survival. This process will need to continue throughout their lives. If you ever need to relocate them to another home, it will need to be in a secure setting such as a zoo.

Also, keep an eye on the cygnets as they march back to the barn with the geese because daytime predators such as domestic dogs or cats or even a rogue fox or coyote could attack them. We wish we had better news, but imprinting is a very real problem that occurs when any wildlife is raised by humans. Good luck and let us know how they progress. The Regal Swan