Coyote. I sit out with them now. Thought it was safe to go pee. Nope. Gone 3 minutes and Leroy Brown was eaten.
Any experience with lead poisoning please?
- Thread starter Kimmyh51
- Start date
Damn 'yotes! You need to arm your ducks!
Some of my largest drakes are hybrids between - uuum, yeah, White Layer ducks and Buff-Orpington Runner hybrid drakes. (?) I don't know exactly. But Leroy Brown Drake (Bad Bad Leroy Brown…) stole my peanut butter samich from the ~2½ foot high table! No clue how heavy he is but he is a big big boy! - Who sadly doesn't like to be on camera…
The descendents of the White Layers here are all very interesting looking ducks, most of them have these beautiful bluish-grey feathers with a black lace, except for Brownie Drake who is mostly brown with an almost black head.
@Magnolia Ducks calls these hybrids »Franken Ducks«
What brought you to the White Layer Ducks? - My wife wanted to have some completely white ducks, but i was hesitant to get Pekins due to the leg problems they often develop.
It was pretty much dumb luck that we ended up with white layers. Went to TSC to get food for chickens one day and they had 6 ducklings left in the duckling bin. I pretty much always feel sad for babies in those bins at TSC so we bought all 6 ducklings, 4 white and 2 mallards. Had no idea what the white ducklings were. I don't think I had even heard of white layers before we got those 4 so I was pretty surprised when they were full grown and no bigger than my Cayugas. My two human ducks are small, they both weigh 4.2 lbs, and lay a ridiculous amount of eggs. The first started laying the day before Thanksgiving last year and laid all but maybe 5 days since then.
I definitely like the white layers except they seem to get broody more than my others.
Real quick update on Phoebe, she took about 5 steps all on her own yesterday! She's a pretty determined little lady. She almost climbed out of her wheelchair trying to chase Pipsqueak after Pipsqueak "stole" food from Phoebe's bowl.
Love to hear that Phoebe is doing better and better every day! 
Baaad duck Pipsqueak! How dare you steal food from yous sick sister! 
Your White Layers are getting broody?! - So far my have neither shown interest in eggs (their own or other's) nor in ducklings. All they are interested in is food…
So far i had an Indian Runner and a Black Swedish going broody full throttle with a total of 11 ducklings. Another Black Swedish and a Buff Orpington were half broody, more interested in making a ginormous nest and defending it than in actually sitting.
White Layers are one of my favorite duck breeds! Even though nobody (except the Metzer's) know how they were created.
Baaad duck Pipsqueak! How dare you steal food from yous sick sister! Your White Layers are getting broody?! - So far my have neither shown interest in eggs (their own or other's) nor in ducklings. All they are interested in is food…
So far i had an Indian Runner and a Black Swedish going broody full throttle with a total of 11 ducklings. Another Black Swedish and a Buff Orpington were half broody, more interested in making a ginormous nest and defending it than in actually sitting.
White Layers are one of my favorite duck breeds! Even though nobody (except the Metzer's) know how they were created.
I think Phoebe likes having Pipsqueak steal her food. When I feed Phoebe by herself, she doesn't eat all that much. It's like she gets bored of it pretty quickly. Then when I feed her without closing Pipsqueak and Bill Bill in a different room, Phoebe waits for Pipsqueak to run to the bowl and then bites at Pipsqueak for a while and then starts eating. Like biting and fussing at Pipsqueak is part of the fun of food time. I'm so impressed with Pipsqueak for finally accepting Phoebe into our flock. I didn't think it was possible considering how much she hated the "duck" in the oven door, or mirror, or any other reflective surface.
Are White Layers not a broody breed? I'm not sure how many of our first 3 went broody last year, they look exactly the same so it was hard to tell if they were trading off being crazy broody. But we ended up hatching 21 ducklings from those 3 ducks and Big Daddy Drake. (He got his name after producing all those babies.) We had to take most of the eggs to let them finish incubating in the incubator after someone would get into the nest and eggs got broken open and we'd find dead ducklings outside the nest. But the mamma duck tried her best to defend her nest. Hissing, running around with the scrinched neck doing the crazy moody, broody quacks, the whole deal. We didn't let them incubate any this year since we ended up with WAY too many babies last year, but we had two generations of crazy broody white layers this summer. There was LOTS of hissing from the fowl houses and lots of running around doing the moody broody yelling when someone would come out of the house. My indoor girls both go through their broody phases even though I collect their eggs every day. My other ducks are Cayugas, Rouens, Khaki Campbells and several that are mixes of those three breeds. One of our Rouen girls went broody last summer but she gave up on her nest after a couple weeks. I figured it got to be too much work because she moved the eggs every couple days. She never made a nest. Just had a pile of eggs that she would move around the yard. The White Layers find great hiding places, like under their house towards the middle so no one could see it, and then make nice big nests. My indoor girls will get stuffed animals out of their toy pile and drag them across the room to add to their nests. We have chickens too and none of our chickens get broody like these White Layers. A couple chickens did go broody this year and hatched eggs, but the chickens don't seem to go crazy about it like our White Layer girls.
I'm so impressed with Pipsqueak for finally accepting Phoebe into our flock. I didn't think it was possible considering how much she hated the "duck" in the oven door, or mirror, or any other reflective surface.Are White Layers not a broody breed? I'm not sure how many of our first 3 went broody last year, they look exactly the same so it was hard to tell if they were trading off being crazy broody. But we ended up hatching 21 ducklings from those 3 ducks and Big Daddy Drake. (He got his name after producing all those babies.) We had to take most of the eggs to let them finish incubating in the incubator after someone would get into the nest and eggs got broken open and we'd find dead ducklings outside the nest. But the mamma duck tried her best to defend her nest. Hissing, running around with the scrinched neck doing the crazy moody, broody quacks, the whole deal. We didn't let them incubate any this year since we ended up with WAY too many babies last year, but we had two generations of crazy broody white layers this summer. There was LOTS of hissing from the fowl houses and lots of running around doing the moody broody yelling when someone would come out of the house. My indoor girls both go through their broody phases even though I collect their eggs every day. My other ducks are Cayugas, Rouens, Khaki Campbells and several that are mixes of those three breeds. One of our Rouen girls went broody last summer but she gave up on her nest after a couple weeks. I figured it got to be too much work because she moved the eggs every couple days. She never made a nest. Just had a pile of eggs that she would move around the yard. The White Layers find great hiding places, like under their house towards the middle so no one could see it, and then make nice big nests. My indoor girls will get stuffed animals out of their toy pile and drag them across the room to add to their nests. We have chickens too and none of our chickens get broody like these White Layers. A couple chickens did go broody this year and hatched eggs, but the chickens don't seem to go crazy about it like our White Layer girls.
Sounds like my Limpy Drake: Whenever i try to sneak some extra catfoot into him he calls out for his girlfriends Nona and Katharina and then the three compete in snatching up the kibbles. Much more fun than just dabbling the tasty morsels out of the water alone…
According to the Metzer Farms web-site they have created the While Layer breed for the purpose of egg-laying. You don't want your birds to go broody when you want to collect all those tasty eggs unless you're a masochist, do you?
Barnyard surprise ducks are the worst when it comes to defending their nests, the duck below was named »Smaug« after behaving like a dragon:
Whow! 21 little duckies! I had seven in 2019 and four this year, i did not want to have any more, but Pinball duck convinced me one morning that she would suffer terrible would i remove the eggs from her:
What are you doing with all those ducks? - Especially with all those drakes?
The main reason why i have ordered 12 new ducklings this fall was because i have too many drakes and cannot separate them (yet). And i am unable to slaughter an animal…
(no i'm not vegan, i love to eat meat!)
And what are you doing with all the eggs? - Fortunately i found an Asian Supermarket who pays just enough for the eggs to cover the cost of food, bedding and treats for the ducks, so we have eggs for free - and lot's of fun!
Almost forgot to ask: How is Phoebe doing?
According to the Metzer Farms web-site they have created the While Layer breed for the purpose of egg-laying. You don't want your birds to go broody when you want to collect all those tasty eggs unless you're a masochist, do you?
Barnyard surprise ducks are the worst when it comes to defending their nests, the duck below was named »Smaug« after behaving like a dragon:
The main reason why i have ordered 12 new ducklings this fall was because i have too many drakes and cannot separate them (yet). And i am unable to slaughter an animal…
(no i'm not vegan, i love to eat meat!)And what are you doing with all the eggs? - Fortunately i found an Asian Supermarket who pays just enough for the eggs to cover the cost of food, bedding and treats for the ducks, so we have eggs for free - and lot's of fun!
Almost forgot to ask: How is Phoebe doing?
I agree, broody is not a great trait for ducks that lay a lot of eggs! I even feel bad collecting eggs from my indoor girls' nests when they get broody even though there's no way they're fertile. I do like the mixed breed duckies though. I wish I could have hatched some more from this years eggs since all my ducks are in the same yard now. Last year the White Layers were in one yard and the Khaki, Rouen, Cayuga flock was in a separate pen. I'd love to see what we'd get mixing the two flocks.
We definitely have "too many" ducks. I tried rehoming some of them last year but that didn't work. We've always lost some to predators. We had a fox with a den somewhere nearby and she always managed to get into the fowl yard. She must have moved when the forest got cut down and they started building giant houses next to us because we haven't had any predators in over a year. Either that or a big flock is good at defending itself. Actually, I did kind of witness that once. I watched a big group of ducks marching in a clump along their fence line, quacking practically in unison, as they chased a stray dog off our property. The dog was terrified! My husband and brother had to get rid of a few drakes earlier this year. I'm terribly irresponsible that way. I don't want to know anything about the "culling". We don't eat them though. I don't know if my husband or brother would want to eat them but I wouldn't be able to cook them. I haven't eaten meat in two years. I don't have any issue with people eating meat or anything. I was making dinner one night and for whatever reason I was grossed out by the meat and never recovered. As for all the eggs, I used to sell them to people at work when I worked. Now we cook a lot of them and feed them to the fowls and dogs. I intentionally don't pay attention to how much we spend on food for them. Because...yikes!
Phoebe is doing surprisingly well. She can lift her wings a little higher every day and can take a good 5-6 steps on her own before she falls. I think she gets over confident and steps on her foot and then trips herself. But she learned that she can move a lot faster if she crawls. It's kind of like walking only she's on her...ankles? And balances herself with her wings. She crawls to follow Pipsqueak and Bill around sometimes. Her favorite spot still seems to be up on the bed or couch though. Nice and soft and she doesn't have to worry about someone stepping on her. It cracks me up that she calls for Pipsqueak to come eat with her. Pipsqueak and Bill Bill, especially Bill Bill, tend to keep quiet when they first start eating. It's much easier to pick out all the good stuff that way! Once they've eaten a good amount of treats they'll start chirping about the yummies.
We definitely have "too many" ducks. I tried rehoming some of them last year but that didn't work. We've always lost some to predators. We had a fox with a den somewhere nearby and she always managed to get into the fowl yard. She must have moved when the forest got cut down and they started building giant houses next to us because we haven't had any predators in over a year. Either that or a big flock is good at defending itself. Actually, I did kind of witness that once. I watched a big group of ducks marching in a clump along their fence line, quacking practically in unison, as they chased a stray dog off our property. The dog was terrified! My husband and brother had to get rid of a few drakes earlier this year. I'm terribly irresponsible that way. I don't want to know anything about the "culling". We don't eat them though. I don't know if my husband or brother would want to eat them but I wouldn't be able to cook them. I haven't eaten meat in two years. I don't have any issue with people eating meat or anything. I was making dinner one night and for whatever reason I was grossed out by the meat and never recovered. As for all the eggs, I used to sell them to people at work when I worked. Now we cook a lot of them and feed them to the fowls and dogs. I intentionally don't pay attention to how much we spend on food for them. Because...yikes!
Phoebe is doing surprisingly well. She can lift her wings a little higher every day and can take a good 5-6 steps on her own before she falls. I think she gets over confident and steps on her foot and then trips herself. But she learned that she can move a lot faster if she crawls. It's kind of like walking only she's on her...ankles? And balances herself with her wings. She crawls to follow Pipsqueak and Bill around sometimes. Her favorite spot still seems to be up on the bed or couch though. Nice and soft and she doesn't have to worry about someone stepping on her. It cracks me up that she calls for Pipsqueak to come eat with her. Pipsqueak and Bill Bill, especially Bill Bill, tend to keep quiet when they first start eating. It's much easier to pick out all the good stuff that way! Once they've eaten a good amount of treats they'll start chirping about the yummies.
Phoebe had went wild with her walkies tonight. She finished eating some dinner in the kitchen and decided to follow Pipsqueak back to their soft blanket pile in the livingroom since I was taking too long getting to her to help. I lost count of how many steps she took but she made it a good 10'! Even managed to turn a corner. 
Is it even possible to have too many ducks? - I guess it is the thore way around, you either have…
Phoebe's progress: That is so great! 10+ steps!
I couldn't answer yesterday due to a medical problem, what i wanted to say is that she should not be encouraged to walk on her heels, under no circumstances! Ducks walking on their heels can easy damage their skin and their tendons. Heel injuries are very difficult to cure and often become infected.
Ducks are very social animals and do need other ducks! - Even if it is only to start a brawl with the others...
- not enough ducks for all your drakes
- not enough duck-house for the flock
Phoebe's progress: That is so great! 10+ steps!
I couldn't answer yesterday due to a medical problem, what i wanted to say is that she should not be encouraged to walk on her heels, under no circumstances! Ducks walking on their heels can easy damage their skin and their tendons. Heel injuries are very difficult to cure and often become infected.
Ducks are very social animals and do need other ducks! - Even if it is only to start a brawl with the others...
Does a large flock of ducks offers more protection? - No!
Yes, the individual duck is less likely to be attacked, just for statistical probability, but the number of attacks will be the same. You were just lucky with that stray dog, dogs are not the most determined hunters. I have lost five ducks this year alone, one to a hawk and four just disappeared without a trace - probably a Coyote or Fox attack.
If you free range your ducks or even semi-free range them (like me, they can run around the house when i am not outside) you will loose birds. The term »sitting duck« doesn't come from nothing.
Yes, the individual duck is less likely to be attacked, just for statistical probability, but the number of attacks will be the same. You were just lucky with that stray dog, dogs are not the most determined hunters. I have lost five ducks this year alone, one to a hawk and four just disappeared without a trace - probably a Coyote or Fox attack.
If you free range your ducks or even semi-free range them (like me, they can run around the house when i am not outside) you will loose birds. The term »sitting duck« doesn't come from nothing.
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