- Mar 25, 2011
- 5
- 0
- 7
Hi there everyone!
My name's Alexa and I work at the Rotary Nature Center at Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA. We're part of the Oakland Parks and Recreation Department and oversee America's FIRST wildlife refuge located at Lake Merritt - it turned 141 years old a week ago! We have many abandoned domestic ducks at our site, which includes two large outdoor ponds viewable to the public as part of the wildlife refuge and five bird islands out on the lake.
While the majority of the birds around us are not domestic birds (pelicans, black crowned night herons, american coots, canada geese, egrets, etc) we also have a couple mixed domestic duck breeds. We have a two muscovy ducks (one's a hybrid), 2 recent cayuga ducks that showed up, two feisty pekings and a misc. assortment of duck hybrids, some of whom are possible domestic hybrids.
As our supervisor is Oakland's only City Naturalist, we're often called out to pick up abandoned animals and often it includes domesticated ducks and chickens. I've only been with the Nature Center for a few months, but my very first on-the-job rehoming involved an araucana chicken that the owner couldn't keep any longer. I found her a new home on a 100+ acre farm in Livermore.
We recently picked up an abandoned chicken, possibly a Rhode Island Red rooster? When looking at photos of Rhody hens and roosters... our chicken is a little hard to tell just by looks. We believe it may be close to full size? But, as we heard what sounded like crowing, we think we have a rooster on our hands. We believe someone trimmed it's tail feathers since they seem to have been disturbed a bit.
I'll be posting to the identification section once I have enough posts that I can include photos/links since I'm brand new on the board.
I'm also here for just general information on backyard chickens and ducks (breeds, techniques, coops, etc) since I'm hoping have some at home at some point.
Anyway... hellooo!
Alexa
(lives in San Leandro, CA - works in Oakland, CA)
My name's Alexa and I work at the Rotary Nature Center at Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA. We're part of the Oakland Parks and Recreation Department and oversee America's FIRST wildlife refuge located at Lake Merritt - it turned 141 years old a week ago! We have many abandoned domestic ducks at our site, which includes two large outdoor ponds viewable to the public as part of the wildlife refuge and five bird islands out on the lake.
While the majority of the birds around us are not domestic birds (pelicans, black crowned night herons, american coots, canada geese, egrets, etc) we also have a couple mixed domestic duck breeds. We have a two muscovy ducks (one's a hybrid), 2 recent cayuga ducks that showed up, two feisty pekings and a misc. assortment of duck hybrids, some of whom are possible domestic hybrids.
As our supervisor is Oakland's only City Naturalist, we're often called out to pick up abandoned animals and often it includes domesticated ducks and chickens. I've only been with the Nature Center for a few months, but my very first on-the-job rehoming involved an araucana chicken that the owner couldn't keep any longer. I found her a new home on a 100+ acre farm in Livermore.
We recently picked up an abandoned chicken, possibly a Rhode Island Red rooster? When looking at photos of Rhody hens and roosters... our chicken is a little hard to tell just by looks. We believe it may be close to full size? But, as we heard what sounded like crowing, we think we have a rooster on our hands. We believe someone trimmed it's tail feathers since they seem to have been disturbed a bit.
I'll be posting to the identification section once I have enough posts that I can include photos/links since I'm brand new on the board.
I'm also here for just general information on backyard chickens and ducks (breeds, techniques, coops, etc) since I'm hoping have some at home at some point.
Anyway... hellooo!
Alexa
(lives in San Leandro, CA - works in Oakland, CA)
