Duck Addicts Anonymous (DAA)

[igorsMistress]

Here’s a few pics from a couple weeks ago. The Fawn and White girls are the moms and the black one is the drake. The four others are the babies and are still a bit shy.

 

[igorsMistress]

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

I love having ducks! I had chickens first but there are a lot of people with them around here and my flock kept getting sick. So I switched to ducks.

Do you lock up your flock at night? My ducks hate being locked in at night. I gave up the fight and let them do whatever they want now.

 

[CaliFarmsAR]

Here’s a few pics from a couple weeks ago. The Fawn and White girls are the moms and the black one is the drake. The four others are the babies and are still a bit shy.
View attachment 2889712View attachment 2889713View attachment 2889714

They are beautiful ducks!! I have like 19 Indian Runners, 3 Anconas, a ton of mixes, and 8 Muscovies, with call ducks on the way!!

I love having ducks! I had chickens first but there are a lot of people with them around here and my flock kept getting sick. So I switched to ducks.

Do you lock up your flock at night? My ducks hate being locked in at night. I gave up the fight and let them do whatever they want now.

That’s cool! I definitely like my ducks over chickens, but I do have my special chickens that mean a lot!

No, my ducks don’t get locked up at night, I’m still working on the new coop, but the can go in it if the want for sheltering and all that!!!

 

[Quatie]

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.

Depending on the owl, they could definitely go after a Pekin. I use to work with birds of prey and teach the public about them. One of them was a great horned owl. Fun fact about them, they have been know to eat fat house cats. A Pekin would definitely be on the menu for them. I worry about my pekin the most because she is big and slow. Ones of the ones I worked with had got attached by another great horned owl when being moved from the aviary to his in door viewing area.

I always bring mine in at sunset and let them out 40 minutes after sunrise with an automatic door. So far I haven't lost any birds while my neighbors have lost multiple chickens. I know my luck won't last forever. And we do have owls, foxes, raccoon, opossum, coyote, mountain lions, bobcats, and red shoulder hawks that have been heard and seen on my property or the ones near me. My main predator I worry about, is dog with an incompetent owner letting them roam. My neighbor killed one this year after it killed over of their chickens. My neighbor warned them repeatedly to keep the dog on their property. When it killed the chicken, they said they would kill it if it came back on their property. Owners still didn't listen, and I think it was either the next day or two days later the dog was shot. Its home was closer to my property and I was constantly worried about my ducks. It was still a very sad end to the dog, because it paid the price for the owners incompetentance.

 

[Albert the Saxony]

I love having ducks! I had chickens first but there are a lot of people with them around here and my flock kept getting sick. So I switched to ducks.

Do you lock up your flock at night? My ducks hate being locked in at night. I gave up the fight and let them do whatever they want now.

Welcome to the duck group! I lock mine up at night because a few years ago I had a problem with a bobcat and an owl. At this point my ducks are trained to go in at night when I tell them to, which is a huge help. I’ve noticed that ducks are very much animals of routine and they can recognize certain words if I use them repeatedly.

Here is a link to my coops.
A-Frame Duck Coop On Wheels

 

[Quatie]

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. You are not alone with duck math. I thought we wanted 6-8 at the most. We got 7 from TSC, 3 females and 4 drakes. Rehomed 3 drakes, and unfortunately one female died. Ordered more females for my drake. Thought why not get Muscovy now. Got two, they were super bonded and lonely, so got 3 more of their mates. Rescued a duckling, it needed a friend and was only able to get a male. Ordered more females just in case for this male. Ended up rehoming jerk before introducing new females to the flock. Eventually decided to just go ahead and max out the coop at 23 now. And still I think about getting a few more. It is amazing how quickly you end up with more and think this is my max, and that max comes and goes.

 

[Albert the Saxony]

Btw, my current flock count is 44 ducks and 4 geese. I have no limit.

 

[Albert the Saxony]

It is amazing how quickly you end up with more and think this is my max, and that max comes and goes.

Yeah, that’s exactly what happened to me.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Depending on the owl, they could definitely go after a Pekin. I use to work with birds of prey and teach the public about them. One of them was a great horned owl. Fun fact about them, they have been know to eat fat house cats. A Pekin would definitely be on the menu for them. I worry about my pekin the most because she is big and slow. Ones of the ones I worked with had got attached by another great horned owl when being moved from the aviary to his in door viewing area.

I always bring mine in at sunset and let them out 40 minutes after sunrise with an automatic door. So far I haven't lost any birds while my neighbors have lost multiple chickens. I know my luck won't last forever. And we do have owls, foxes, raccoon, opossum, coyote, mountain lions, bobcats, and red shoulder hawks that have been heard and seen on my property or the ones near me. My main predator I worry about, is dog with an incompetent owner letting them roam. My neighbor killed one this year after it killed over of their chickens. My neighbor warned them repeatedly to keep the dog on their property. When it killed the chicken, they said they would kill it if it came back on their property. Owners still didn't listen, and I think it was either the next day or two days later the dog was shot. Its home was closer to my property and I was constantly worried about my ducks. It was still a very sad end to the dog, because it paid the price for the owners incompetentance.

Wow! That's good to know. Thank you for sharing that. My big ducks were supposed to be free ranging so they don't have a run but they have a duck house that sits on a peninsula like chunk of land that sticks out in the pond, but is definitely above pond level. Once my Pekin became hurt with her foot, I started confining her in my fenced in area that was supposed to be for my dogs (2 Maltese) outside time. The other ducks wanted to be with her so they spent a lot of time at the fence line. My first loss was due to this. A neighbors dog came and got my Jumbo Pekin drake as they were trying to get back to the pond for safety. After this, I started keeping my Pekin drake in with my Pekin Duck hen. The Buff Duck, Cayuga drake, and Mallard drake continued to free range. One evening right after sunset, but before dark, the Mallard went missing. No feather trail, no quacking from the Buff, nothing. I suspect an owl got him. Now, ALL of the big ducks stay in the fence. I walk them down to their house once it's dark. Otherwise they'd hit the pond and try to stay out all night. I carry Honey Boo Boo because her foot, which is healed but she has some bone erosion, a limp, is slow and oftentimes trips. I have started carrying Reggie (Pekin drake) because his foot is bothering him. No bumblefoot but he hatched with a deformity and was walking on his ankle. I was able to get him walking on his foot but he has occasion flares where he'll limp. So they have to wait on me to go to bed and if I take them whenever they can see well, they'll be in the pond. Anytime this has happened, my night is spent trying to get them in and usually takes a few hours.

I guess my rambling strikes again. My apologies!

If I locked them up at 7, will they be OK to go without food and water until 8 the next morning? I don't let anyone out until about 30 minutes after sunrise to give predators that lurk around in the night, time to go away. I walked out one morning and found a fox sitting there staring at my chicken coop. I suspect it was waiting for them to come out

 

[HeatherKellyB]

They are beautiful ducks!! I have like 19 Indian Runners, 3 Anconas, a ton of mixes, and 8 Muscovies, with call ducks on the way!!

That’s cool! I definitely like my ducks over chickens, but I do have my special chickens that mean a lot!

No, my dicks don’t get locked up at night, I’m still working on the new coop, but the can go in it if the want for sheltering and all that!!!

I know I'm not the only one that noticed the typo in the bottom paragraph I bet every single one of us have had this happen. No auto correct, that's not what we meant but it is funny. Not laughing at anyone but laughing with