Duck Breed Focus - Australian Spotted Duck

[cscarney]

We've had Spots now for almost a decade--they started as my daughter's 4-H ducks, and we've kept them going ever since.

Personally, I do think they have a number of utilitarian qualities despite being classed as a bantam duck. We have found them to be good egg layers during spring and summer, the hens make excellent, attentive mothers, and they produce a small (think the duck equivalent of Cornish game hen) roasting duck at maturity.

They're also hardy and pretty self-sufficient, though they do need protection from predators (raccoons and hawks around here) especially at night. I have found them to be a useful "bug and slug" patrol in the gardens, and they have kept the stock tank and the buckets for the livestock free of mosquito larvae since we started letting them free range a couple of summers ago.

Hens are coming into lay here, so we'll be putting Spots eggs into the incubator in early April if the hens don't go broody first!

 

[Harborotter]

I bought ducklings last Summer from Holderreads. Beautiful little things. Unfortunately owls seem to have a taste for them and I have to keep them under lock and key. I have the tiniest little silver hen. Just beautiful. A couple hens just started giving me eggs. As I am not very good at hatching ducks, I am so nervous.

I started with quite a few and now I am down to 10. I have 6 hens and 4 drakes. I just love them. It breaks my heart anytime predators go after them.

 

[cscarney]

Sorry to hear you've been dealing with owls. Around here it's raccoons by night and Cooper's hawks by day, so I keep mine in a covered run pretty much 24/7.

My original stock is also from Holderreads, though I'm several generations down the line from them. In my experience the hens will go broody and have made very good mothers. I've also used broody chickens to hatch spots eggs, but haven't had much luck hatching anything with an incubator.

Good luck with them!

 

[Harborotter]

Sorry to hear you've been dealing with owls. Around here it's raccoons by night and Cooper's hawks by day, so I keep mine in a covered run pretty much 24/7.

My original stock is also from Holderreads, though I'm several generations down the line from them. In my experience the hens will go broody and have made very good mothers. I've also used broody chickens to hatch spots eggs, but haven't had much luck hatching anything with an incubator.

Good luck with them!

It's such a shame I can't let them out to play and to be ducks. They get so excited when they see me coming. I really love my Australian Spotted Ducks.

And I have terrible luck incubating duck eggs.

 

[cscarney]

You might want to try letting them out during the day when you're home--then offer them grain in their night pen so they come back in and you can close them up. Mine are pretty good about coming back into the pen at night as long as I feed them there.

They're fun little ducks to work with! Mine "talk" when they see me coming, and will follow me around the yard if they're out.

 

[Duck Drover]

I love the Australian Spotted ducks more than any other breed I have raised. We have been breeding them for four years now so we have established a very nice flock with alot of genetic diversity and color variations. My daughter earned her Girl Scout Silver Award through her conservation efforts and she continues to educate people about the benefits of keeping backyard ducks. The Spots are excellent foragers and they are the best layers of the bantam breeds. Ours lay from February to October but we have even had eggs in November and December with our mild winters in the Pacific Northwest.

The Spots are very easy keepers and they are docile so they make great pet ducks. They have strong social bonds so they look out for each other. Then hens hatch and raise their own ducklings successfully when they are safe from predators, including crows when the ducklings are small. We hatch them with ease in our Little Giant styrofoam incubators. We started with greenheads and added blueheads and silverheads to our flock so we hatch all three colors. We sell the ducklings and we also raise up breeding pairs in order to start as many flocks as possible. I get requests to ship ducklings and adults all over tne country but I have not shipped any yet because there is always enough local demand for them.

We have a larger than planned flock this year because we wanted to raise up our blueheads and silverheads to choose the best breeders to keep. I am currently waiting for multiple surgeries that will keep me off my feet for awhile (I am already off my feet due to a torn tendon that needs surgical repair so I can walk again) so we are having someone else do our hatching for now. I am looking forward to hatching again once I am able to get back on my feet.

 

[cscarney]

Hi Duck Drover--

My success with incubating duck eggs is pretty low--do you have anything special that you do?

BTW, your descriptions of your Spots and their behavior is exactly like mine. Great little ducks!

Hope your surgery goes well!

 

[duckmeister]

Some drake photos please.

 

[Duck Drover]

Hi Duck Drover--

My success with incubating duck eggs is pretty low--do you have anything special that you do?

BTW, your descriptions of your Spots and their behavior is exactly like mine. Great little ducks!

Hope your surgery goes well!

We use the still air Little Giant incubators and we do dry hatching, meaning we do not add water during incubation and only raise the humidity slightly for hatching. We use a separate incubator for hatching that is a couple degrees cooler than the incubation incubators. We have automatic turners during incubation but then we also move the eggs around during hatching because we have staggered hatches, usually every four days.

We have the incubators on wire shelves (good air circulation) so as we move eggs from the bottom incubator to the hatching incubator on the bottom shelf, we candle and move the eggs in the remaining incubators down to fill in the empty egg holders. I think this could help prevent the eggs from sitting in hot spots or cold spots through the incubation period with still air.

We use forced air for hatching chicks the same way but because ducks need more humidity they do not get as dry as they would with a fan. We live in a humid climate so that is why we don't add water. I have filled the water trays in dry climates and if the weather is dry for long here I will add some water but dry hatching semes to work better than keeping the humidity at the recommended levels. I even have ducklings hatch in the hatching incubators at times because the eggs were started before we gathered them so I know the extra humidity is not necessary for hatching.

When I tried raising the humidity for hatching the first ones hatched okay but then the wet ducklings raised the humidity too much and it drowned the ducklings in the shell. It just seems to work better to keep the humidity lower than what is often recommended. I put a small meat baby food jar filled with water in each corner of the hatching incubator and then the ducklings can drink from them once they are dry and running around. I try to keep them locked down as much as possible since the dry ducklings will actually help groom the wet ducklings but if they are sitting on the eggs that are zipping I may move them out sooner and get them eating and drinking so they can teach the younger ducklings how to eat and drink.

I have mixed ages in the first level warmest brooder so the older ducklings get the younger ones started before I move them to larger brooders. Ducklings grow so fast that I keep them in smaller groups than chicks but they tend to have new homes by the time they are a week old unless we decide to keep them to raise. We have had losses during hatching but things happen to ducklings hatched by the hens too so we just focus on the successes and try to learn from our mistakes.

 

[Duck Drover]

This is a bluehead drake with a silverhead hen (taken in our bathtub, lol).