Recent content by lilyduck

  1. lilyduck

    Duck egg white cooks CLEAR, not white...very strange

    Hi duck people... Long time duck owner here, my family has been eating duck eggs from our small flock for 10 years, but I’ve never seen this before. We’ve now had 2 eggs, that when cracked in a pan for our typical morning fried eggs, the white part cooks CLEAR, not white. I mean really...
  2. lilyduck

    Guineas in a Vineyard?

    Thanks for the excellent advice! It seems like getting adult guineas in my vineyard NOW is not realistic. The problem is that these disease-spreading insects (sharpshooters) are flying now, and will be mostly gone in 6 weeks. I think I'll pick up some chicken pullets for this year, and plan...
  3. lilyduck

    Guineas in a Vineyard?

    OK, so I've read more of the info on this board about guineas, and sobered up about the possibility of being able to clip their wings and expect them to stay inside the fence. I guess the real question is: Is there any way I can get two adult guineas off craigslist, clip their wings, put them...
  4. lilyduck

    Guineas in a Vineyard?

    Hi all - I'm a veteran duck-keeper and thinking about getting guineas for pest control in my 1-acre vineyard in California. I have tons of questions! First - we have tiny blue-green sharpshooters invading our vineyard and spreading a deadly grapevine disease. The mature adults are flying...
  5. lilyduck

    Candling possibly rotten eggs - two air sacs?

    Hi Missy - I decided that my blueish-blackish eggs were bad and took them out. Good thing too, because I had two babies by this morning and I really didn't want gross exploded rotten eggs on the babies! After candling them really carefully, I realized that one air-sac was the "true" air sac...
  6. lilyduck

    Candling possibly rotten eggs - two air sacs?

    Hi all - Yesterday my mama duck was sitting on 5 eggs, 3 had a blueish cast to them. The two normal looking eggs are moving when candled, one has internally piped and I think the other has both internally and externally piped. Today one of the blueist-cast eggs had exploded rotten material...
  7. lilyduck

    Setting mama duck past day 29 - what to do?

    Thanks for the replies everyone! So I got my courage up and took the eggs out and candled them today, using the metzer farms candling guide, it looks like two of them are Day 25 (but I didn't see any movement) and the other two look like Day 11 or so, and I saw bright red vessels and the...
  8. lilyduck

    Setting mama duck past day 29 - what to do?

    Hiyya duck experts - I always turn to you for the best advice when I'm totally stumped, and now I have another problem! I've been letting one of my welsh harlequins sit on her eggs, she's been very dedicated and almost never leaves the nest. But, today is day 30 and I don't see any...
  9. lilyduck

    How soon can you move a mama and ducklings?

    Great! Thanks so much, that's what I'll do!
  10. lilyduck

    How soon can you move a mama and ducklings?

    Hi all - I have a broody welsh harlequin sitting on 14 eggs right now. She's in the corner of a pen shared with 2 geese, 3 drakes, and 11 other female ducks. I have a little portable fence separating her from the flock while she's setting. But, the fence only gives her about 4 square feet of...
  11. lilyduck

    Raising Geese with Ducks - Overall Good or Bad?

    I lost three ducks to a coyote pack this morning, so I'm thinking of ordering new ducklings and a couple of goslings for protection. I browsed through old posts about raising geese, and saw the terrible pictures of goose attacks on ducks, which makes me worried about having geese with my...
  12. lilyduck

    Can ducks really eat whole corn kernels?

    Hi there - I have some dried whole corn (still on the cob) that I grew in the garden last year. It's a flour corn variety so the kernels are big and tough. The storey's duck book says that you can give ducks cobs of corn (broken in two) and that the ducks will shell it themselves and eat it...
  13. lilyduck

    Help! Free-ranging ducks don't want to forage

    Thanks for the replies! It's good to know that others have had the same experience and that my little ones might get more adventurous later in life. Another idea is to construct a temporary pen down in the area that I want them to forage, and pen them down there during the day. Has anyone...
  14. lilyduck

    Help! Free-ranging ducks don't want to forage

    Hi there - I have a flock of 12 free-ranging ducks (about 11 weeks old now- I raised them from hatchlings). About 50 feet from their pen is a lush meadow with lots of tender greens, and 100 ft further is a nice little creek. But they don't want to forage in the meadow or the creek! They...
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