The Migratory/Ornamental Waterfowl INFO Thread

Lots of you have been asking me about doing one of these, so I finally wanted to at least get a start on it.
I'm in a rush right now, but once I get a chance, I plan to set this up, give a brief history of myself and my waterfowl, list the breeds I have experience with, break the ducks down into groups and give general husbandry info on them, and help answer any questions you all may have on them.
This will take me a while to do, probably will do it Saturday when I have time to sit down for a while.
Hope you all enjoy it, and help keep the thread going as I'd sure hate for it to get buried.
Talk to you soon
Aubrey

This is a great idea! With a lot more people showing interest in these ornamental breeds, I'm glad they can come to a thread will they will get the answers they need....good idea BBB! Anyone who has questions, fire away!

Nice idea. I just had my first clutch of mandarins hatch today (3 regular 2 white) so I need to learn as much as possible.

well here goes. I have a few minutes so thought I would give a brief history of myself for those of you who dont know and list the waterfowl, at least the ones I can remember, I'm sure I miss some, LOL, that I have raised here.
I first started keeping migratory waterfowl at the ripe ol age of around 8 years, wood ducks, mandarins, the basics. My parents werent very keen on the idea, so they told me it was fine, but I was going to have to build it all, pay for it all, and care for it all on my own. NO BIG DEAL! I got summer jobs around the farm every year after that and slowly added what I could every fall. By the time I was 12 or so I had about 25-30 species already and a Federal Permit, the USDI, missed the age part, LOL you have to be 18 to have it actually (they caught it later on) . Anyway, by now, I was breeding and making even more bird money and paying for all the expenses with it, so I went crazy.
By 15ish, I had tons of them, about 1 acre fenced in and covered and was shipping waterfowl all over the country. Funny thing was, everyone called looking for my dad, when it was me they needed!
Anyway, it was around this time when I got a call one night from the Bronx Zoo in NY. They wanted to know if I was willing to help gather up and house a new diver collection for them one fall while the finished building the exhibit for them, obviously I said sure! Well, you dont just say sure with them and it's done. They sent the waterfowl curator all the way down here to south Georgia to meet with me, Doug Piikarz. He interviewed me on film, videoed all the birds, aviaries, quarantine pens, etc and had to take it back to the Board of Curators with the Wildlife Conservation Society. They approved me hands down! So for the next 6 months I housed the Bronx Zoo's newest waterfowl exhibit in my backyard, pretty cool I thought, well still do....

Anyway, years went on this way, more birds came in. And finally at around 22 or so I had to move and had around 1000 birds, well unfortunately, They had to go, was just too much to take with me, 10 years later I'm still sick about that... But am back at the same farm now, which I have inherited and now full plan to start getting them all back, will just take a lot of years and thousands of dollars to get back where I was at. One thing about these guys, is once they are in your blood, it's hard to get over them, ol domestics just wont cut it! Glad to see there is a lot of new interest here on the BYC for them, and hope we can keep this thread going. I will be very happy to try to answer any and all questions yall may have, and hope some of our other waterfowl keepers will join in and help.

In the next few days I will be breaking down the vast array of "types" of waterfowl available and giving generalized info on them, feeding, nesting, climate effects, housing etc. If you have questions about a specific species, feel free to ask away!



I plan to break them down sore of like this;
DIVERS
TREEDUCKS
TEAL
SHELDUCKS
SEADUCKS
OTHER DABBLERS

Heres a ruff list of the waterfowl I use to keep, any of these, I will gladly answer any question on, some of the rarer species that I didnt keep I can still help on.

TEAL
bluewing, greenwing, cinnamon, falcated, gargany, sharpwing, puna, silver, hottentot, cape, marbled, chestnut breasted, brazilian, laysan,baikal,ringed, chilean etc

DIVERS
American eider, hooded merganser, smew, american merganser, tufted, greater and lesser scarup, ringneck, red heads, pochards, canvasbacks, american and barrow's goldeneye, bufflehead,ferriginous whiteye, american ruddy duck, argentine ruddy duck etc

TREEDUCKS
Whitefaced, fulvous, javan, eyton's, cuban,spot,wandering,blackbelly

SHELDUCKS
ruddy,european,radjah,paradise,cape,australian

other
DABBLERS
woodduck, mandarin, american shoveler, new zealand shoveler, argentina red shoveler, american widgeon, chiloe widgeon, european widgeon, northern pintail, bahama pintail, yellow bill pintail, spot, black, wild strain mallard,gadwall,phillipine duck etc

GEESE
barhead,cackler,canada,nene,egyptian,red breasted,snow,orinoco maned,barnacle etc and mute and black swans

There were several more, but you get the idea

Post away!!

I love hearing about how people got in to poultry! Thanks for typing that out! Do you know if its possible to own/raise American Coots? Aka mud hens

Great thread. Interesting background you have, BBB.

I never get tired of reading how you got started... It's awesome!

I have a question. I have to get a waterfowl sale and disposal permit pretty soon. I know they are $75 and you have to submit an annual report every January. I was wondering how long this permit lasts until I have to renew it? And I don't turn 18 until December, is that a problem?

Can someone tell me where I can pick up a pair of Canvasbacks?

Thanks all, gone keep going at it here, much more to come as time permits.

1lpoock
yes, you must be 18.
In my case, I put down all the correct info, they just didnt catch it, even the local game wardens didnt pay it any attention until that one day!
I had a Federal Warden come with our local guy because I had recently purchased several Endangered species, Laysan Teal, and Hawiian Geese (Nenes)
He was coming to just check them out and follow up on checking the paper work. When he met me, that's the first thing he siad, "BOY HOW OLD ARE YOU"
Told him, he siad well you have have one heck of a collection, but you arent allowed to hold this permit til you are 18. Being a Federal Permit, minors arent allowed to hold one.
Long story short, let your parents put their name on it, til you are 18, after that, renew it in your name.
The permits are for 1 calender year, ending 12/31 each year.
At that time, you must file your annual sales and disposal report.
You get a copy of the 3-186 forms for your records every time you sale a bird. You MUST keep these on file. I attached them to note book paper and would place them in order in a spiral folder. At the end of the year, you just copy the info off them down onto your annual report form. This is just a total style form, ie, total male wood ducks, total female wood ducks, total green wing teal males, etc.
In addition, if you raised any and still have them on hand, you have to report them too, as birds on hand. male female of each.
Also if you lost any threw the year, they also have a section to be reported on.
Basically, they can take this form and come to you and know exactly how many of each species and each sex you should have on hand til the next breeding season.
Mainly, this is just a technicality, you know how the Government can be on paper work, but by law you must keep up and good records are a must.
Back to that Federal Game Warden I dealt with that day, he knew every species by name that he saw that day, and when he saw the Laysan Teal, he said "I need to see your record books"
He's the only one that ever did it, but he went threw every page of it!
If they ask, and you dont have it, it can get messy with them.

Fortunately, I had just bought all them on a trip up to NC to Sylvan Heights Waterfowl from Mike and Ali Lubbock, 2 of the greatest waterfowl educators in the world. If you have a chance, I highly recommend going to see them you'll all be blown away at their 60+ year collection, there's not a species hend in captivity that they dont have, including all the pygmy geese, pink eared ducks, ect.

Anyway, back to the game warden inspection, he fully inspected every page of it, and said in short, that it was one of the most thorough record books he had ever seen, especially from an early teenager.
So keep those records accurate and easy to follow, and you'll have any trouble.

The good thing is, this permit is only for North American migratory species, and endangered speices. The vast majority of waterfowl arent on this list. The permit does come with the total list of all species it covers, but there is a large number from forgein countries, that are very beautiful and are not covered. Also, most American waterfowl have an eclipse plumage which makes the beautiful males very drab and hen looking threw 1/2 the year. However , a lot of the forgein species maintain there male plumage year round, giving them more year long apeal. Lots of the teal are this way, as are all the tree ducks and shelducks, just s thought on them??

Okay thanks so much for the help you've given...I own a permit right now just to have the wood ducks. Will I be required to send any report in at the end of the year if I don't acquire a sale and disposal permit this year. Reason being, right now it looks like all the wood ducks I get to hatch, I will keep.