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I agree with everything that Cetawin said except for one thing, it's about No 4. I totally agree that your climate sounds wonderful for them, the fan in the summer is fantastic, I wish I could get electricity back to my set up (I'm working on it), but I disagree, (with conditions) with putting a heat lamp in their coop. Please understand I am sharing only what I do and think should be done. There are many, many people who do things very differently, and they get alone perfectly. My issue with the heat lamp are a couple of things: 1. I'm concerned about condensation, and humidity in the coop. With applied heat you could be setting up the perfect conditions for a petri dish, so it could become the ideal place for mold and fungus to begin to grow. I thought long and hard about this when I started with d'Uccle because they have a reputation for not being as cold hardy as many breeds. What I did was build them SMALL coops, about 2 x 4 x 3. I put a roo and his hens in one of those coop. They can hold quite a few because they're bantams. Anyway, those little bodies are furnaces and they either sleep squished up against each other on the perch, or they cuddle up with one another in a corner of coop. Either way, they stay toasty warm and dry when they are in their coops, and I've never lost one to cold, or for that matter, had frostbite from being in the coop. I insulated the roof of each of my coops, particularly because of the summer. I wanted them to be a comfortable place for the hens in particular when it gets hot and it seems to have worked, they do like their homes.
As far as a big market, I don't think I would call it a big one because they are bantams and all bantams are limited in their appeal to folks. I see that as the one big drawback to breeding them, they appeal only to the pet market, so there is the potential for a lot of birds that need to be culled. At lease with LF there is a use for and market for the superfluous birds. However, with their advocates they are VERY popular and some folks end up wanting more and more the deeper they get into the breed, ultimately becoming collectors.
I don't know of any books that are available that a specific to the d'Uccle. That doesn't mean there aren't any, it's just that I don't know of them myself. I believe the d'Uccle thread and the breed web site
http://www.belgianduccle.org/ are the best resources available.
All that I've said here is IMHO of course.
So happy to have you joining in on the tread and becoming a fan of these little gems.
Nancy
I do not use heat lamps on ours. They have a free flowing watering system that does not freeze in the winter. If there is enough ventalation then there is little humidity therefore no frostbite.
Our winters get down to -30C so we are cool but as ointed out they huddle together and keep warm. we have a 2x4 on wide side for a roost so we don't have issues with toes.
Ours are out in the snow with no issues.
