Recent content by GMT

dahlilas~duckies : Helloo there. We got 4 khaki campbell ducklings last friday, one day old, Last night i noticed them alll sneezing. its not all the time, just here and there. but i am still worried. their nostrils/eyes arent oosing goo or anything. i have read about an electrolyte to put in...

Quote: Nah, she won't care that they don't look like chicks. Where she's going to be in for a shock is when her "chicks" decide to jump into the pond for a swim.

Quote: Try putting in more golf balls. At least three or four . . . so move all the balls into one nest box and see if that will encourage them to lay in it. Also, if you're finding eggs in the water, or outside the coop, you may be letting them out too soon. If possible, let them out...

Golden 300s really are excellent producers. They're very hardy ducks with sweet temperaments. Once they start, they produce like clockwork. Mine started back in the end of September and they show no sign of slowing down. The "layer" non-hybrid breeds like the Campbells, Welsh...

Quote: A) Yes. Ducks have this nasty habit of sometimes dropping eggs wherever the mood strikes them. Especially some of the laying breeds, whose maternal instincts seem to have been bred right out of them. Wherever you confine them at night, provide some sort of nesting enclosure with a...

Just make sure they have free-choice food, free-choice oyster-shell, and see at least 14 hours of daylight or daylight + adequately bright lighting per day. That will help encourage them to be in a productive mood.

Quote: I'm sorry to hear about your girl. Contact Metzer and tell them what's going on. She's one they shouldn't have let out the door, since she has what sounds like a pretty obvious (and serious) birth defect. From a naive read of your situation, it doesn't look at all good for her, but...

Quote: I'll echo what's been said about their water requirements and the mess they make. Make sure that the water they get is only big enough and deep enough for them to completely submerge their bills into, as they will attempt to climb into any water and will get themselves quite soggy in...

I have six Golden 300 girls. They really are beautiful birds, they've got excellent temperaments, and by the time they hit 21 weeks of age, they were laying like clockwork. They've done exceptionally well, given that this is the first time that I have raised poultry ever.

Quote: Adding more ducks (assuming they are girls, the boys are chatty too, but they can't manage the girls' loud quack) just means there's more of them to quack, since they now have friends to gossip with (common topics of conversation include: "The sun is rising!" "The sun is setting!"...

Because it takes a duck's internal plumbing about a day to go from an ovulation to finished egg. So the answer to how does it work is "One at a time, and very quickly."

Quote: They'll all take turns climbing on top of each other and going through the motions. Mine do, at least. It doesn't seem to stop them from laying, though.

At the moment I have a four-foot wide kiddie pool that I dump once a day. I already have a tiny little ditch cut for the water to drain away from the pen. I'm thinking of fencing the area off, digging some more channels and turning it into a garden so all that pre-fertilized water won't just...

Quote: You only need to trim the long flight feathers, and really only on one side. A duck with trimmed flight feathers will still have enough flight ability to get out of trouble, while lacking the flight ability to get into it (as has been said the big non-Muscovy duck breeds don't fly that...

Quote: Nope. Unlike chickens, ducks have some ability to see in the dark. They need to be taught to go back to the coop. Or else, herded home every night. can you keep them in a coop and run situation with guineas or chickens? right now i only let my older chickens out for a couple hours a...