YORK, Maine — Everything’s ducky at the Raydon Road Extension pond for waterfowl this winter. Despite recent concerns raised on social media that the birds aren’t being fed, in fact, they are being fed daily as they have been for decades.

Several residents said on Facebook in recent weeks that they’ve been down to the popular duck pond and have been concerned at the crowded conditions and the clamor to be fed — leading some to wonder if the ducks and geese were being ignored.

“You see families down there feeding them all the time, and I wondered whether that could be a sign that they’re not getting fed properly,” said Greg Horrucks, who saw a number of posts from people.

Josh Abbott of Abbott Brothers Inc. said the company has committed to feeding the ducks as it has since his grandparents built the Raydon Road Extension subdivision in the 1970s. There is a grain feeder at the pond, which is filled several times per year. Each morning in the winter and every other day in the summer, someone from Abbott Brothers opens the hopper using a key, which is automatically shut off after a period of time, he said. Usually, it is Abbott’s father, Clayton, who lives nearby and takes on this task.

“We pay for the food, and we feed the ducks, and we continue to do so all winter long,” he said. There’s also a pump under the water in the pond to keep the pond unfrozen. Right now, only a small part of the pond isn’t frozen, and a large number of ducks are crowded onto the water.

“There are wild ducks that fly in because a food source is there, and they eat as well as those that are year-round residents,” Abbott said.

Abbott Brothers pays for the electricity to run the pump, as well as the grain, Abbott said, adding, “My dad feels like it’s a responsibility personally and financially to take care of them.”

Resident Richard Hodgkins said he wonders if the community shouldn’t step up and help the Abbott family out.

“If [the Abbotts are] taking care of all this, that’s fantastic, but that’s a burden on them,” he said. “I would like to do anything I can to help them out.

Unsure if the ducks were being fed, Hodgkins has taken to giving the birds cracked corn every so often.

But wildlife specialist Erin Burns at the Center for Wildlife suggests people do not feed the waterfowl anything, including cracked corn. But especially not bread.

“We treat a lot of birds with nutritional deficiency because they’re fed bread, and their bodies aren’t built to process it,” she said.

She said she has concerns about ducks and geese that “grow dependent” on grain feeders because it can stop their migratory patterns. They stay put, she said, and then become more vulnerable to human interaction such as hitting windows, hitting cars or being caught by cats.