Call Ducks

[La Roux]

Hey all,


Can you give me the dish on these adorable birds????? I would like to now their housing/ feeding requierments, as well as hatching tips. Oh, and pm me if you have hatching eggs, thanks!

 

[UGAchick]

I am following this thread. Raising ducks was not even on my radar until I became addicted to BYC. Now I feel like I can do anything! I am interested to see what people say about them. They are so cute!!

 

[Sweetfolly]

Call ducks are supposed to be hard to incubate/hatch artificially.

They can fly, and the females are loud.

That's pretty much all I know. I just picked up my first Call (a little White drake) today at a swap! Sorry for the cruddy picture, but he's in quarantine - just in case he has any nasty viruses or anything that he could give to the rest of the flock.

 

[Outbackhill Kennels]

Just to clarify how loud they are I could hear my call duck hens over half mile away one night while deer hunting

 

[Chic-n-farmer]

here is a picture of my snowy calls

I keep them in a 6 foot tall dog kennel with a roof over it. They have a doghouse for shelter and the bottom of a kid's turtle-shaped sandbox for their pool parties. I use a small stock tank deicer to keep the water from freezing in the winter.

I don't think they are all that loud, but I have children, guineas and peafowl... so, what's a few more decibels here or there...

I don't think I would ever want to be without call ducks! They are a joy to behold!

 

[La Roux]

I dont mind the noise

. I have a really good ?; is it safe to color the water that you put in the pans to see how high, or low it is?? The last time we tried our hova bator still air, the humidity messed up our hatch

. Thanks! Oh, and any eggs out there

?????

 

[Sweetfolly]

Quote:
Like with food coloring?

I don't see why that would be a problem - if it's non-toxic and edible, I can't see how it could harm the developing embryos. But - I think that's a better question for the "Incubating and Hatching Eggs" forum, you'll get better answers there.

And try e-bay for hatching eggs - there's a bunch of them on there for Call duck eggs right now.

 

[vlapinta]

Curious what happened to your hatch. What was wrong with the humidity?

Vicki

 

[La Roux]

The eggs were bumped by our movers while they were hatching, AND i COULD NOT SEE HOW MUCH WATER WAS WITHIN THE TRAYS.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

when in doubt on humidity with duck hatching, more is always better, food grade coloring shouldnt hurt a thing, but keep it high, 65% threw the whole period is what I alway do. If you run it lower like chickens, you loose a lot of them. I've hatch out 10's of thousands of migratory duck over the years, and you just have to keep it high, misting them with water daily helps too. I keep a spray bottle in the incubators with them, that way the spray is the same temp as the air, dont use cold water! Aside from that, they hatch very well if not shipped, calls that is, or any domestic for that matter.