Recent content by Derputy Dawg

I use straw and sawdust. I've been using pelletized horse bedding but can get sawdust from sawmills locally.

I'm in southeast Texas. I have 11 ducklings and plan on keeping 3 hens. I have no problem selling the excess girls here, but the drakes are probably going to end up in the stew pot.

I can't wait until I'm able to reliably sex these ducks so I can get rid of some of them

I've been giving mine a bath every evening and they have started to preen while hitting that oil gland. It's been a week or so but they seem to float okay now. They are a month old.

Penelope is the only duck name.

I have heavy clay soil, so it's a challenge to keep a lawn alive to begin with. I have to block off sections and seed it with duck resistant grass.. which I have yet to find.

I just checked the brooder and none of them are under the heat plate. Is it time to take it out?

This duckling is about two weeks old, not sure what is going on here but none of his siblings are doing this. Any idea what it could be? He doesn't seem to mind being close to the heat plate.

Mine hang out with me when I manually turn my pile and have no fear of the shovel. Occasionally one finds an earthworm and the others chase after it.

Anything for waterfowl chicks should be good. Try mixing the dry food with water and offer it to the duckling. Hopefully you have more than just one, they really want to be in a flock.

The legs appear to be in the proper position, but the foot is just curled around. It actually seems to be getting better on its own. At least it's not upside down anymore.

As far as I can tell everything looks fine with the leg above the foot. The duckling almost walks normally, but the foot is backwards. I'm going to try taping it to see if that helps.

One of my last eggs. The duckling pipped at the narrow end of the egg and had difficulty getting out. One of it's legs is curled in backwards, not sure how to describe. I'm sure there are splinting threads I can take a look at. Out of 15 eggs I have 12 ducklings (if this one lives) so I...

and it's fine