Dutch Hookbill Hatch!

[WannaBeHillBilly]

yikes! your poor girls. how many girls do you have? what breeds do you keep?

I have eleven drakes and twenty-eight ducks. The three thugs are from my first broody duck's hatch here in Summer 2019 and i am just too attached to get rid of them one way or the other.
I have a colourful mixed flock here:

• Four White Layers, Blanca, Earthquack, Fluffy and Flauschi Duck
• Three Black Swedish or Magpies (don't know for sure), Pompom, Pommes and Pinball Duck
• Three older F&W Runners, my first ducks, Katharina and Nona Duck and Limpy Drake
• Eleven unnamed F&W Runners, the fall ducklings from last year aka »the wonkies«
• Three Buff Orpingtons, Olivia and Violeta Duck and Erpelchen Drake
• The remaining ducks and drakes are all mixes, there is LeRoy Brown, Rusty, Spot, Pomponel and Drake With No Name Drake, Mini and Misty Duck, the three thugs and their four sisters (one of them recently earned the name "Karen").

I'm not selling eggs for hatching, because the almost all offspring would be Barnyard-Mix ducklings, but i sell a lot of eggs for consumption, enough to feed the ducks and pay for their straw.

 

[kerryb90]

You have a lot of flat land! - What i have here is such a steep hill-site that the ducks have developed one long and one short leg and if they turn around they roll right down the hill and i have to go and collect them at the bottom.
That is the main reason why i have not gotten into Hookbills and other birds. I just cannot erect something like a hoop-house here, everything has to go on a platform, downhill-side high in the air. Expensive and not a weekend-project/
Your drakes definitely have hook-bills! On the pictures at CL you cannot see it! How are their ladies looking, do they also have wonky-bills?
Careful with the neighbor's dog, especially if it is a Labrador(-mix?). I have lost one of my beloved ducks in January to the neighbor's Lab-mix. Since then i have erected an electric fence with three strands. It also keeps the deer out.
So mockingbirds keep hawks away? - I provide the local murder of crows with food during the year and they actively are chasing the hawks away. Just recently they were divebombing a hawk-pair out of the tree they have started to build a nest - very close to my house and the ducks. I love them, no law protects hawks from the crows…

Bummer about the hills! SO common around here though, I remember when were looking for houses last year that some listings actually listed flat land as a plus!

Yes, the CL pics were taken with my original 4 drakes, which had less of a hookbill shape than the other, more recent acquisitions. Maybe I should go out there with my camera and retake the pictures, though, if the difference is that distinct!

The welsh harlequin-looking spotted white ones are actually my female hookbills - you can see what I mean when I say they did not get the most hookbill-esque genes! Their offspring are showing definite curved ("candy cane") beaks already though, so I'm confident the previous owner didn't lie to me about them being part hookbill. Not sure how many generations back the WH is in them but my guess is not many!

The neighbor's dog has learned the hard way about the electric fence and keeps his distance. He pays no attention to our ducks. Our dog Juno, a boxer/great dane mix who's almost a year old (you can see her hind end in one of the pictures), escaped from her fenced in area (which forms one side of the duck fence) last week for the first time and actually got ahold of one of our lady hookbills. I don't think she was intending to kill her, just play, but it's the same thing to a duck! Luckily I caught it pretty quickly and Juno didn't even hurt her enough to break the skin as far as I can tell. She slowed down in her laying for a bit but has finally picked it back up again. Since then our pup has been on the lead in her yard during the day because we haven't had time to fix the fence. She hates it lol, fixing that fence hole and getting more netting as a buffer is a priority now.

My understanding is that mockingbirds will chase off anything they see as a threat to their nest - which certainly includes hawks! I've seen them chase off crows before, though I've hardly seen any birds bigger than that aside from harmless turkey vultures. They're more active in the spring and summer. We have an owl decoy out as well year round, though I'm not sure how much good that does...

 

[kerryb90]

I have eleven drakes and twenty-eight ducks. The three thugs are from my first broody duck's hatch here in Summer 2019 and i am just too attached to get rid of them one way or the other.
I have a colourful mixed flock here:

• Four White Layers, Blanca, Earthquack, Fluffy and Flauschi Duck
• Three Black Swedish or Magpies (don't know for sure), Pompom, Pommes and Pinball Duck
• Three older F&W Runners, my first ducks, Katharina and Nona Duck and Limpy Drake
• Eleven unnamed F&W Runners, the fall ducklings from last year aka »the wonkies«
• Three Buff Orpingtons, Olivia and Violeta Duck and Erpelchen Drake
• The remaining ducks and drakes are all mixes, there is LeRoy Brown, Rusty, Spot, Pomponel and Drake With No Name Drake, Mini and Misty Duck, the three thugs and their four sisters (one of them recently earned the name "Karen").

I'm not selling eggs for hatching, because the almost all offspring would be Barnyard-Mix ducklings, but i sell a lot of eggs for consumption, enough to feed the ducks and pay for their straw.

sounds like quite the menagerie! I would like to eat our duck eggs but I don't see it being ethical since they're all at least half hookbill... we keep chickens and eat their eggs. that's enough for the two of us.

 

[kerryb90]

@Pyxis sorry @WannaBeHillBilly and I kind of hijacked your thread! How is your hatch going?! Have you candled lately?

 

[kerryb90]

Got a few pictures and several videos of my babies right after changing the bedding this morning. Look how the bills are starting to hook already at just a week old! (I believe the one on the right is only 5 days old - no doubt his bill will droop more soon enough!) @WannaBeHillBilly - as requested.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Bummer about the hills! SO common around here though, I remember when were looking for houses last year that some listings actually listed flat land as a plus!

Yes, the CL pics were taken with my original 4 drakes, which had less of a hookbill shape than the other, more recent acquisitions. Maybe I should go out there with my camera and retake the pictures, though, if the difference is that distinct!

The welsh harlequin-looking spotted white ones are actually my female hookbills - you can see what I mean when I say they did not get the most hookbill-esque genes! Their offspring are showing definite curved ("candy cane") beaks already though, so I'm confident the previous owner didn't lie to me about them being part hookbill. Not sure how many generations back the WH is in them but my guess is not many!

The neighbor's dog has learned the hard way about the electric fence and keeps his distance. He pays no attention to our ducks. Our dog Juno, a boxer/great dane mix who's almost a year old (you can see her hind end in one of the pictures), escaped from her fenced in area (which forms one side of the duck fence) last week for the first time and actually got ahold of one of our lady hookbills. I don't think she was intending to kill her, just play, but it's the same thing to a duck! Luckily I caught it pretty quickly and Juno didn't even hurt her enough to break the skin as far as I can tell. She slowed down in her laying for a bit but has finally picked it back up again. Since then our pup has been on the lead in her yard during the day because we haven't had time to fix the fence. She hates it lol, fixing that fence hole and getting more netting as a buffer is a priority now.

My understanding is that mockingbirds will chase off anything they see as a threat to their nest - which certainly includes hawks! I've seen them chase off crows before, though I've hardly seen any birds bigger than that aside from harmless turkey vultures. They're more active in the spring and summer. We have an owl decoy out as well year round, though I'm not sure how much good that does...

Yes, i was happy when my wife told me she got a good deal on a nice house with 40 acres of land and started dreaming about sitting on a tractor, plowing and tilling my own fields - i have only three flat spots on the entire 40 acres. On one spot sits the house, on another an empty barn and the third flat spot is off my driveway. The last two spots have so poor drainage that you can't stand still there without sinking knee-deep into the ground. Good ol' yellow Appalachian loam…

I looked at your pictures again, and, sorry, but i can't see any oh so slight bending of their bills. They look like normal WH ducks on the pictures.
Some of my Indian Runners had a more bent bill last autumn:

​

But that curve has grown away and her bill looks as straight as those of her sisters.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

sounds like quite the menagerie! I would like to eat our duck eggs but I don't see it being ethical since they're all at least half hookbill... we keep chickens and eat their eggs. that's enough for the two of us.

Well remember: The Hookbill Duck was once producing the staple-food for the working in the Netherlands. In the end those eggs are nothing sacred, just eggs. And dux-eggs are yummy!!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Got a few pictures and several videos of my babies right after changing the bedding this morning. Look how the bills are starting to hook already at just a week old! (I believe the one on the right is only 5 days old - no doubt his bill will droop more soon enough!) @WannaBeHillBilly - as requested.

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Definitely HookBills! @Pyxis i can't wait to see your little `Hookies' too!
And, yes, sorry for taking over your thread!

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Watching your Hookbill Duck adventures, Pyxis, and counting down the days!

 

[kerryb90]

I looked at your pictures again, and, sorry, but i can't see any oh so slight bending of their bills. They look like normal WH ducks on the pictures.

neither could I - again, the previous owner didn't want them because their bills weren't hooked well either, so I got them for a good price. I have no reason to doubt him or his breeding program. clearly their young have the hookbill trait, which is what matters to me.