This spring our Rouen hen laid 19 eggs, 10 hatched (early July). Late September she started laying again. She's been pretty regular at one egg per day. Is this normal?
We got our drake and hen last year when they were about 7 weeks old. She started laying her first few eggs around this time...
I read through several threads on sexing and understand sound, quack or hiss, is the best way other than looking for the corkscrew method. But seems I read somewhere that one has a single black stripe across the eyes and the other has a double stripe across the eyes. When our two were still...
Another twist to the duckling saga. I set up a barricade in the door of the run high enough to keep our new ducklings in but low enough so the adults can come and go. Placed some fresh straw in the run and Waddles built a nest for the ducklings. I thought Waddles had abandoned the remaining 7...
Here's our day-old ducklings going for their first swim. Around 42 seconds Mom grabs one by the scruff of the neck and throws it in. It's amazing how much natural instinct these birds have. Both as ducklings and adults.
Here's our proud Mamma with the first couple ducklings. Around 7AM there was one duckling. Around 6PM I counted seven. She laid 12 eggs total that I could count.
Our Rouen drake has some color changing going on. He's just over a year old. In the picture you can see the lighter color coming in around his lower beak, a few speckles near his upper beak and above his eye. What doesn't show up in the photo is around his eyes is turning from the emerald green...
Our female Rouen has been sitting on about 8 eggs since the last week or so of March. Temps were pretty low back then. Last week she rejected one egg by pushing out of the nest. It had a hole in it and some pretty gross grey stuff was coming out.
I'm wondering what I should do in a week or...
Back story: Even though I built our two Rouens a nice snuggy coop, they insist on hanging out on our patio door step, which is just a single step made of wood. Even when the temps dropped below zero they spent the night on the step instead of the coop except if it was windy.
Problem: Ducks...
Here are pictures of our male Rouens beak. It's like chapped and chipping. It's been an extremely cold first winter for our two ducks, and us as new duck owners. Is this something I need to be concerned about? Is there something I can do? The females beak seems to be fine.
Sorta funny but not. My male has a clump of straw frozen to his butt. He must have been laying in the straw and pooped, then it froze to him. I tried pulling it off but didn't want to pull any feathers out. He and the female keep biting on it.
Can I cut it off by using a scissors to the...
We are new to ducks as of June of this year, so this is our first winter. I'm learning a lot from reading through the other threads. There is one subject I have not come across, why ducks make certain sounds or move in different ways.
Specific case: about once a day our Rouens come to the...
Anyone in Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc. have a small pond for their ducks? Do you use a pond heater to keep it open during our freezing winters? Our pond is roughly 10'x6'x24in deep, approximately 650 gallons. So far the waterfall has kept running but the pond itself is freezing over. What brand...
Our female laid her first egg, that we know of. But she's not sitting on it. First found it today so have no idea how long ago she laid it. Temperatures have been below freezing. The egg is in straw in their coop that they never went in. Should she be laying on it 24/7 or do her instincts guide...
It's 2:30 AM and my hen mallard is floating in the pond quaking weirdly. We only have one drake and one hen. We've had them since June, they are around 16 weeks old. I went out in the yard by the pond to see what was going on. All I found was both ducks floating side by side in our small bond...
Just thought I'd do a little intro. I'm Denny, new to raising ducks. We were given the ducklings at about three weeks old (top pic). So we kept them safe in a garden wagon with a chicken wire cover. They grew like weeds so built them a coop & run (mid pic).
Like Koa, put them in a bigger...
We are new to raising ducks so this will be the first of many questions.
We were given two, three week old ducklings as pets about four weeks ago. They were pulled randomly from a flock of 15 ducklings. Now that they are older, and much bigger, we are pretty sure we have two males. My questions...