Recent content by bigtrout

Let me chime in on my experience living near the woods with every predator known to man...hawks, eagles, owls, coyotes, fishers, mink and weasels and racoons. I free range mine and live on the edge of the forest. Make a proper duckhouse and lock them up at night! Give each duck 3-5 square...

One more thing to check, you say that the brooder is covered and contains 3 heat lamps. There are other threads on here about Teflon covered heat lamps giving off fumes which are toxic to birds, seems to me that some of the heat bulbs sold at Tractor Supply were in fact Teflon coated. As...

First impressions on the runner ducklings vs the other ducklings I have raised...the runners are a little more skittish but...also more curious which leads to them standing upright at full height trying to peak at whatever piqued their curiosity...neat!!!

I have several different breeds but no runners. After unsuccessfully trying to order runners in from the local feed store, I found a nice lady with runner ducklings for sale...talk about cute...and alert. The mothers were fawn and white, and blue. The father was fawn and white. Three of them...

the lighter one with the dark head looks to be a khaki drake. The darker one may be a dark campbell duck.It looks like a campbell but is just dark but there is a breed called dark campbells. If it is a dark campbell then mating it to a khaki drake would give u sex linked ducklings...in other...

here they are fully feathered...look like blue fawn rouens to me...???

All ducks herd easily...after they learn the routine...mine actually come in same time every day to have a snack before bed in their house so the breed doesnt matter. Runners...welshes...khakis...appleyards...anconas and magpies are the best layers...my pekins are close behind...while they are...

I have pekins...khakis...welsh harlequin and a few welsh/khaki mixes...all great layers. Their eggs are as creamy as u describe the muscovy eggs...plus my ducks all lay like crazy. Try baking with the duck eggs...cakes poof up higher and taste much richer. Despite having 15 laying ducks all...

thats the 3rd or fourth pic of ducklings from tsc that look like mine did and were in with blue swedes...eye stripes and blue fawn down...mine are deathering out now...size of swedes but definitely blue fawn...did a hatchery mix up blue fawn rouens with swedes ..or is it a really bad hatchery...

Update with pics to follow as the ducklings are fully feathered. As TSC said...the black ones are black swedes and they all quack so they are girls. The gray ducklings are feathering out to be blue fawn colored. They are still the same size as the swedes so they will be larger ducks. One has...

I have pekins...khakis...welsh harlequin...black swedes and a few tractor supply ducks that are unknown but look like they may be blue fawn rouens but wont be able to tell until they completely feather out. I am adding the 8 penciled runners and stopping there.