Duck Addicts Anonymous (DAA)

[igorsMistress]

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Love that!

 

[CaliFarmsAR]

I'm not sure, i would kind of think no as well, he's just such a tiny guy. But then again I suppose anything is possible, the size difference I see with dogs is amazing at times.

Ok!!! It would be cool if it could happen!!

 

[HeatherKellyB]

I think we cursed me when we were discussing predators. An owl killed one of my yard roosters overnight. One was missing this morning and I found a feather pile. Checked my camera replays and an owl swooped in around 1a.m. and grabbed one. Poor fella.

These are “extra” roosters that free range in my yard. No great loss really. I’d rather any aerial predator take them, than my ducks while they are out. The “yard birds”, as I call them, have decided to sleep on top of their coop instead of going inside it at night. I might try to force the final 3 to go inside tonight. Sometimes they roost in the rafters where I can’t reach them, so I never got them trained to go inside. But now I know I have another owl on the prowl.

I'm sorry. Hopefully it was a quick end for the rooster. I keep hearing an owl around here every night. After reading your post, I feel like I'm getting multiple clues and should take them to heart. My ducks are usually out well after dark, but I think I probably need to change this. My big ducks don't have a covered run and while I don't think an owl would be able to carry a Pekin off, I imagine my Buff Duck and/or Cayuga drake are at higher risk. Plus my bantam Cochin rooster has been staying with the big ducks during the day since my other roosters bully him so much. I guess I need to change up my nightly routine before anyone is taken or injured. Thank you for sharing this.

I have one of those black rubber bowls with water in my Calls house. It's big enough for them to sit in and I've found one in the bowl at 2am so I suspect they slept there. Since it's getting colder, I feel like I probably need to take it out overnight. After reading something about a duck suffering from a severe foot injury due to water freezing overnight while the duck was sleeping, I'm worried this is a possibility. Of course I need to look into this more, but I wanted to ask if anyone has food and water in their duck house/coop overnight? I understand they have to have water available if they have feed, so if I take the water out, the food will be taken out as well. They have a gallon drinker in their house as well and it's one of the bell shaped drinkers. Any thoughts? Sunrise is 7:45am and sunset is around 6:30pm, if this has any impact on your thoughts.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Hello, my name is Liz, and this is my first meeting.....

I currently I have 2 pekin hens, but my goal is to get a solid line of either Ancona or Magpie and breed them

we are currently in limbo with potentially moving out of state so that is my only restraint for adding more. Lol loved reading through a majority of the posts and seeing all the different flocks!!

Edited to add names: Pippy is the lighter beak (the one in their water/food bowl, of course just after freshly cleaned ) and Quackers is the more orange beak who's playing in the mud lol

My poor hubby has no idea what's in store for when I do add the magpies or Anconas

Hello Liz.............
(isn't that how folks are addressed during meetings, at least in the movies)
Your girls are beautiful! I love Pekins. My Pekin is hilarious and from what I've seen, they usually have outgoing silly personalities.
In total DAA spirit, just go with Magpies AND Ancona!!!

 

[igorsMistress]

Hi all, can I join? I was supposed to have only four ducks, but started with three Runner ducklings. I thought one was going to be a drake so I bought 3 white layer ducklings. Everyone turned out to be female though, so I bought a Swedish Blue/black Runner drake. He wasn’t able to mate well with the white layers because they were twice his size, so when one of my Runners went broody and hatched four ducklings I gave the white layers to my son to go with his flock as he had two drakes and only two hens. Now I’m up to eight ducks. This is my limit and I’m good with it. Although I do look for more once in a while.

 

[CaliFarmsAR]

Hi all, can I join? I was supposed to have only four ducks, but started with three Runner ducklings. I thought one was going to be a drake so I bought 3 white layer ducklings. Everyone turned out to be female though, so I bought a Swedish Blue/black Runner drake. He wasn’t able to mate well with the white layers because they were twice his size, so when one of my Runners went broody and hatched four ducklings I gave the white layers to my son to go with his flock as he had two drakes and only two hens. Now I’m up to eight ducks. This is my limit and I’m good with it. Although I do look for more once in a while.

Welcome!!!!

Sounds like you have a nice flock!
Also, I one time limited myself to 20 ducks that was my max.... and....somehow at the end of the year I had over 40 of them....

Hopefully limiting will work better for you then it did for me

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Hi all, can I join? I was supposed to have only four ducks, but started with three Runner ducklings. I thought one was going to be a drake so I bought 3 white layer ducklings. Everyone turned out to be female though, so I bought a Swedish Blue/black Runner drake. He wasn’t able to mate well with the white layers because they were twice his size, so when one of my Runners went broody and hatched four ducklings I gave the white layers to my son to go with his flock as he had two drakes and only two hens. Now I’m up to eight ducks. This is my limit and I’m good with it. Although I do look for more once in a while.

All Duck Addicts are welcome Runners are so adorable! We'd love to see pictures of your ducks if you'd like to share

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Hi all, can I join? I was supposed to have only four ducks, but started with three Runner ducklings. I thought one was going to be a drake so I bought 3 white layer ducklings. Everyone turned out to be female though, so I bought a Swedish Blue/black Runner drake. He wasn’t able to mate well with the white layers because they were twice his size, so when one of my Runners went broody and hatched four ducklings I gave the white layers to my son to go with his flock as he had two drakes and only two hens. Now I’m up to eight ducks. This is my limit and I’m good with it. Although I do look for more once in a while.

All Duck Addicts are welcome Runners are so adorable! We'd love to see pictures of you'd like to share

 

[igorsMistress]

Welcome!!!!

Sounds like you have a nice flock!
Also, I one time limited myself to 20 ducks that was my max.... and....somehow at the end of the year I had over 40 of them....

Hopefully limiting will work better for you then it did for me

We shall see, I’m already at twice what I said was my limit lol.

 

[CaliFarmsAR]

We shall see, I’m already at twice what I said was my limit lol.

Lol! I just counted my ducks and I have 41 and I’m hatching 4 more lol!