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  1. Ahab

    Ducks and the First Moult

    The general recommendation when processing ducks is to hit the 10-or-so-day window just after first full feathering and before the first moult begins (6 to 10 weeks old); otherwise, you have to wait another six to 10 weeks for full feathering before processing, unless you enjoy endless hours of...
  2. Ahab

    That last overnight meal

    When we isolate a few birds to be killed (I'm thinking ducks, which are uber-flock animals, but chickens, turkeys, and geese probably qualify, too), and lock them up in isolation with water but no food until slaughter-time in the morning, are we doing this for them? Or for us? They hate being...
  3. Ahab

    Adjust Little Giant 2550 auto-waterer?

    Is there a trick I'm missing to adjust water levels in the Little Giant 2500-series poultry founts? Per the instructions, screwing the control nut toward the spring increases water level; screwing it away from the spring reduces. Clear and simple. Except that there seems to be an imperceptible...
  4. Ahab

    Oats: Crimped or whole?

    My four-week-old Anconas love rolled oats in addition to their Flock Raiser (working toward Holderread's recommendation of cutting commercial pellets with oats up to 25% by weight), but rolled oats from the grocery store are pricey, and the feed store carries oats only in whole or crimped. Does...
    • Ahab
    • Thread
    • Replies: 6
    • Forum: Ducks
  5. Ahab

    With ducklings, How much Greens is too much Greens?

    I've got week-old Anconas in the brooder house, with free-choice 18% protein chick starter available all the time. Per recommendations in Holderread's Raising Ducks, I'm feeding them chopped "dandelion greens . . . several times a day in a quantity that will be cleaned up in approximately 1...
    • Ahab
    • Thread
    • Replies: 5
    • Forum: Ducks
  6. Ahab

    That Old Time Division

    Can anyone--probably ancient, probably Southern--remember how chickens used to be cut up 60 years ago, with the pulley bone as a separate piece, and the breast divided into something my grandmother affectionately called "fenders" and my modern mother dismissed as a culinary relic? Years of the...
  7. Ahab

    Cackle's Ancona Ducks?

    As anyone ordered Ancona ducks from Cackle? Experiences? Impressions?
  8. Ahab

    Buckeyes or Chanteclers?

    Like many, I'm looking for the perfect small-farm bird for our climate (Maine) and our situation. Our first priority is self-sufficiency--i.e., broodiness, foraging ability, general- and winter-hardiness; second is meat production (enough to feed a pair of scrawny old people who remember how...
  9. Ahab

    Ducks and Apples?

    Our house is surrounded by what is known in Maine as "deer apples," meaning trees planted by deer--and tasting (for the most part) pretty much like their seeding vector. Years ago we kept sheep and ducks in the same pasture (where our house now sits), and the ducks were sometimes fast enough to...
    • Ahab
    • Thread
    • Replies: 18
    • Forum: Ducks
  10. Ahab

    Electrifying existing wooden fence

    We're planning to keep ducks, and thought they'd winter well in our vegetable garden, which is enclosed by a board fence 5 feet high, if we keep the ducks inside a secure night coop and let them out only in the daytime. The local predators are foxes, coyotes, and especially raccoons. Does...
  11. Ahab

    Igloo Doghouse for Ducks?

    After searching the archives, I've come across a couple of mentions of Igloo doghouses used as coops. They'd seem ideal for us here in cold and wet and windy coastal Maine, where everything wood begins decomposing the day you build it and everything rectangular eventually gets blown flat. My...
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