Few Newbie Questions

[Amiga]

Just catching up, here. Again, so grateful you are still with us!

The layer feed may be a bit much if your ducks are not laying. Over time, the extra calcium puts a strain on kidneys, which is not so good. It is not recommended for ducklings, non-laying ducks, or drakes.

If your ducks are female, and within a month of starting to lay, they should be fine.

 

[Bridgertrot]

Well dang. I was hoping to get a response before I opened the bag and started feeding it. Guess I might have to save it and buy something else. I'm thinking we have a male and a female but still not 100% sure.

 

[Amiga]

Well dang. I was hoping to get a response before I opened the bag and started feeding it. Guess I might have to save it and buy something else. I'm thinking we have a male and a female but still not 100% sure.

I apologize. I missed this until now.

And I think that one bag of feed, especially if it is cut 50/50 with something without so much calcium, won't be a big deal.

Is one quacking and the other still peeping or whispering?

 

[Bridgertrot]

Lol It's ok. I bought another 50 lb bag of the stuff I originally started with. The Purina Flock Grower (or something along those lines), recommends we feed that up until 18 weeks and then switch to a type of chicken feed with lower protein. And yes one of them is starting to hit "puberty" and has occasional voice crack quacks with a little peeping while the other is still peeping.

 

[veronicasmom]

I just found this thread. I just don't know what to say. I am so sorry for the loss if your property, but you sound like an amazingly strong person. Bless you. That must be awful to go through. Owning so many animals, I don't know what we'd do. Glad the humans and ducks got out alright and are adjusting.
Take care and keep us posted on the rebuilding of your life and home.

 

[Bridgertrot]

Another update. Still evacuated, -might- be able to go up next week but who knows. Another fire has broken out (there well more than two in the state, everywhere is on fire) near my parents homes which is 200 miles away from us up here. It is called the Waldo Canyon fire. Started about noon yesterday and still is 0% containment. Here is a pic my mom took off her back porch yesterday.




It's more of an urban setting but her backyard is national park up against the mountains. The winds shifted directions earlier and if it ends up crossing the main road they are going to start packing things up. My dads house is only a few blocks away from the current evac line but it still has to go through a lot of homes to get to his. So his might be fine. Here is a pic he took from town.




This is getting insane! I don't want to lose another place.

On another note, I took a picture of Nut's legs with the feathers on them. Is this normal? Or some sort of strange mutation? He has them on both legs. Excuse the messy floor.


If it is a mutation...can I call him my teenage mutant ninja duck?

 

[cskotek]

Im sorry about your house and property. and it is odd how certian things didnt burn. Im happy about your duckies and them being safe But i chuckled when i read that the horses tried slurping them?? lolll How does that work? And another thing i think your ducks legs are cool with the yellow legs and the black webbing

 

[Bridgertrot]

Thanks! His legs are starting to become more orange now. Anyone have any idea about the leg feathers?

So we finally got to go up and see our place a few days ago. Only for a short time though since they let us up at 5 pm. We dug around a little and found a few things but there's not much left. We found a mug that survived a one-story fall. Looks like the surface of the moon. Was a sad drive going up seeing all the houses along the road gone. My boyfriends mom just wants to take a bulldozer to the place but me and him want to actually go through it and see what we can find. It's going to be a lot of work but we've found a few things and we see other things sort of in tact that we just can't get to yet. His parents had the dishwasher full of dishes and the fire burned it up and it fell over. We can see whole dishes through the bottom of it. We won't use them of course but it's a bit of a souvenir. It's sad and yet interesting at the same time trying to identify burnt things. Hopefully we'll get back up there soon to dig more. It'll be a lot easier when we can move some of the metal roofing.

On a duck note, they are over 4 weeks old now! Growing so fast. I need to finish their coop since their getting big for their current cage. I let them run around the shop while I'm there hanging out with them and they love it. Running around checking everything out...and eating anything they can fit in their mouths lol I have to confiscate things on occasion. They really like spider webs

lol Here's a quick video of them. They like playing on the plastic shavings bag. They then have a little spazz run. Excuse the mess, they love getting shavings everywhere.

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a173/brood_mare25/?action=view&current=1a5166c5.mp4

 

[Amiga]

You have two sweethearts, there! Thanks for the video

ducks redecorate, it's just what they do.

I don't have any feather-legged runners or buffs, but don't know about rouens.

 

[Bridgertrot]

Thanks! I got another video of them to share...and it's hilarious. So glad I caught it on video. Ignore my awful laugh.

http://s11.photobucket.com/albums/a173/brood_mare25/?action=view&current=673aa673.mp4

We also made a tiny bit of progress on the coop. Got a fence around it but it's not secure from predators yet.


Does anyone know where we can find something really tough for a roof for not to pricy? Like aviary netting or something? We went to a recycled construction materials place and found a giant thing of netting for only $2 so we got it. Now that I look at it though, I don't think it would stand a chance against a raccoon or something. It's a plastic like netting. Seems like the type of netting used to protect a strawberry patch from finches. I stood on some of it and pulled and it ripped. Easily cut by a knife and I assume raccoon claws too.

On a side note, all of the animals were on crazy pills yesterday. The ducks were running around like fools being funny. The horses were outside running crazy. Kept taking superman leaps into the creek and running up and down it. One of them tried to eat my boyfriends homework off the picnic table. And all four of them were trying to help me refill the ducks water. Jax thinks he's a duck.



I still hadn't screwed it on and he kept drinking out of it lol

Also I'm almost 99% sure now that we do have a male and female. Although we discovered yesterday that we were backwards! We can really see a green sheen on our "females" head LOL So I guess Bolt is a boy and Nut is a girl.

One last add on...what's a good way to stop biting? Nut is a perfect little duck. Always lets us catch her, pet her, doesn't bite, loves to be around us. We've always treated Bolt the same way but he runs, freaks out when held, tries to bite. Complete polar opposites. He think's we're going to kill him or something. Is there anything we can do to get him to relax more? We've been trying to handle him twice as much as Nut lately. He's very attached to Nut too. He's fine when he's right next to her but even if we move them 2 feet away from each other he freaks out while Nut doesn't. Our approach so far with the biting has been a firm "NO!" and an attempt to hold his bill shut (but I'm afraid to hurt him by doing that). Now we've been flicking his bill away. It takes about 6 times before he stops though. I just want him to like us like Nut does.

And here's a picture of them for fun.