★★★ All Green Duckling... ??? ★★★

[Amelia-DarkWing]

I guess we'll all know in a few weeks... ): I hate waiting. lol

 

[wendeld]

Me too it felt like it took.FOREVER to wait until they were five weeks to determine by quacks what the genders were. I have seven.drakes and three.ducks

 

[Amelia-DarkWing]

SEVEN DRAKES?!?! Holy duck poop! How do you keep them from killing each other or mating the hens to death? I've only had 2 ducks at a time, but people always scare me with lectures on how aggressive males get and that they each need 3 women per drake. I think my baby is a male, and I have an adult male rouen, so people already have me freaking out that they might kill each other one day during mating season. Sure enough, my rouen tries to mate the baby when in the pool, so I only let them play together with my supervision. I'm just hoping they will both realize they're men here soon, and just be buddies forever. How do you do it?

 

[wendeld]

Well mine are only seven weeks old so the whole mating thing isn't an issue yet unfortunately I will only picking one to stay with the three ladies.... I have no idea how to pick which one. Do you have any females or just the two ? I wonder if there were no females around if the two drake would just be buddies ? I have heard with khakis that the males can be quite busy and aggressive and that there should be at least five ducks per drake but all I have is three so I guess we will see how it goes. I am hoping to get some trips of a few other breeds before the summer is over too . Maybe they will all have to be in separated areas I don't know this is my first year with ducks so I am still learning

 

[Amelia-DarkWing]

I've only had ducks for about a year and half myself, so I'm still learning a lot too. We got 2 babies from Metzer Farms, 1 Female Pekin, named Amelia, and 1 Male Rouen, named Dark Wing aka DW. They are seriously the loves of my life. Sadly, Amelia passed away about a month ago from being egg-bound I believe, it happened minutes before we were about to drive her to the vet. DW got sad, so we bought a duckling off Craigslist, unable to just order one from Metzer, and that's the Khaki Campbell (Possible Cayuga) that you saw pictures of named Bilbo Baggins. We thought he was a girl at first, but it looks like he has a tiny penis, so pretty certain it's a boy. Now DW is pooping green occasionally, and Bilbo is turning green in color, so I'm really freaking out. I'm on here every spare minute trying to read solutions. DW seems to be much happier now that Bilbo is around, and he is only pooping green every 3rd poop or so now, and I make sure he eats lots, use DE powder to prevent mites, dewormer, niacin, and an epsom salt flush. All of these ideas came from this website, and he's seems to be improving slowing, so thank god for this website. That would be hard having to choose just one. I have to restrain myself from buying 100 more myself. Maybe just picking the least aggressive one? Idk. ): But DW is very aggressive when he feels "in the mood" at least once a day. He's left bruises trying to mate with me, and a bare spot on amelia's neck from mating her when she was still alive. It's scary looking when the men get "giggy with it." It looks like rape and murder. Then he goes back to being cute and cudly 5 minutes later. I think he started his sex drive around 6 months or so. Now he's a year and half, and tries to mate Bilbo sometimes, and I have to supervise him always until Bilbo is big enough to defend himself. Yikes. I have a video of Amelia and DW if you wanna see it:

 

[wendeld]

Awe that video is cute I love it . Question though what is wrong with green poo. My ducks and two geese have all sorts of different poo runny,solid, tar looking, white, green they seem healthy maybe it's just because they are free range and forage all day...? Eeek I'm not looking forward to when they starting mating if that's what it's like will be kind of awkward to explain to my daughter haha. There is one drake that is shyer then all the other drakes and all of them in general maybe he is a good candidate to keep

 

[Amelia-DarkWing]

Yeah its very scary to watch them mate. Except right before they do it, they initiate it by bobbing their heads up and down a few times. I'm sure there's a video on youtube somewhere. That part is funny. Water is what turns them on 99 percent of the the time. They always did it in the pool or at their water bowl. I didn't know any of that at first, and was confused for a month or so, haha. My boy always looked like he was surfing on my girl. It was weird. And I also learned ducks have one of largest genitals of mammals, and it looks like a cork screw or a pigs tail. It just coils up in there. Very gross. But yes some green poop is bad. It usually is bright neon green and watery. I guess it mostly means they're not eating and usually is for a serious reason. They should also show other signs too though, and it is continuously green. I wouldn't worry if its one semi-green poop once in awhile with no other symptoms. That seems normal. But all 3 times I've seen the neon green liquid poop it was serious, and a different reason each time, but it also involved them mostly laying down, with their tail down, and u could just tell. Once amelia swallowed a penny, which is toxic and kills ducks, she survived though, the second she was egg bound and died, and the third is dw currently which is getting better and still an unknown reason.

 

[laughingdog]

Sure.. now with everything else, ill be worried about the ducks poop! saw on here that green wad or green pee soup poop was normal, especially when eat a lot of grass, algea, leafy geens, water plants, ect. My scovys eat a lot of moss, lichens, and greenish layer pellets, and oddly seeming pet pigeon poop (they were raising babies and still are, so why haven't removed from duck pen), as well as rest, so wasn't worried at all till now.. poop was white and clear when got them.

 

[Amelia-DarkWing]

well, i'm not a vet, and have only owned ducks for a year and half. i'm sure some green poops are normal... i've only had problems with the bright neon green, watery poop. it's only happened 3 times since i've owned ducks, and each time, they showed other symptoms of looking sick and seeming very sad. so i can't tell you to freak out and that your ducks are definitely sick, i guess just use your gut feeling, and make sure they're eating.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

My ducks free range and I see a lot of green poo. I really noticed it when they switched from the winter diet of feed over to Spring's glorious greens... So I don't worry about green poop for my flock. Wend, back to your question about which drake to keep: I had the same choice this year, but with only 2 options. I evaluated personalities first, since I have more than one drake in the flock, I wanted to keep the nicest, least aggressive. That was a tie for each. So then I evaluated the traits that I'd like to keep in my flock: size and stature, then coloring. Good luck. Do you have a plan already for the other 6 drakes?