Thank you for responding to my "land" swans question. I also have a few other questions.
We have a 2 acre pond which we stocked last year with 9 Carp to keep the vegetation down. However, I now realize that aquatic plants are what my swans need to eat. Should I try to get rid of the carp? Maybe this is another reason why my swans spend so much time on land. They don't always stay at my side. They visit me at the barn then leave to take amazingly LONG walks. We often have to go find them and usher them back to the pond.
I am going to assume I have a male and female since one is larger than the other. My second question is, will they mate this spring even though they are brother and sister? They do spend time apart which I think is strange.
If they do mate should I let them hatch the eggs (will interbreeding cause defects) or will my pond then become so over run with swans that they will drive my 14 domestic geese away? And also, if I let them do the hatching will they know how to raise the cygnets since they themselves were raised by humans?
Thanks so much for your time and swan smarts.
Sherry