How/why did you start with ducks?

[GrannySue]

Never in my wildest dreams would I think that my world would become focussed around ducks and chickens! Especially ducks...
It all started so innocently. I heard that a duck guy and his kids were culling their drakes and offered to take 2 off his hands. Just for decoration in the yard, of course. I was happy with my small flock of chickens but wanted a bit more variety. The white drakes, named John and Tim after a wonderful couple in town, were happy in their new home and all was well. Until a raccoon asked Tim out for dinner, with Tim being the dinner!
Poor John was devastated, all alone. Then he started palling around with my 3 pullets. They went everywhere together. When the pullets wanted to roost up high, John would wait for them.

But John's hormones kicked in and soon he was doing what drakes do best. Unfortunately there were no ducks around so he chose his former BFFs as his victims.
So I got in touch with the duck guy. Yes, he would give me a hen duck but he only sent them in pairs. So Victoria and Albert came to my Vast Estate.
Still, John continued his almost incestuous behaviour with the pullets.
So I went to a poultry swap to get some more girls for him. No ducks there although I came back with 2 mutty hens who had just started laying.
Eventually I found another girl, then a couple of weeks later got 3 more. Except one turned out to be a drake. The seller was happy to trade back, but when she told me the drake would go straight from my place to the pot I offered to keep him.
The count at that point was 3 drakes, 5 ducks. Not to mention my 10 chickens, 5 of which are semi-retired.
But wait! Somewhere in that timeline was the purchase of an incubator and the subsequent hatching of 3 little ducklings on June 10/11.
John continued his wayward behaviour, despite the fact that I trained my Jack Russell mix to chase him when he mounts the chickens.
Last week I put an ad on our community mail list. Selling a white runner drake. Not John, Albert. The first person who replied said he didn't know what a drake was, but figured it was some kind of duck and he would like to try ducks. Forget it! Next reply was from a well-respected farm saying, "We'd love to take him!" I wrote back immediately, offering Victoria as well - a sort of buy-one-get-one-free deal.
I took them up to the farm on Wednesday and was delighted with the crazy mix of dogs, kids, animals of all sorts.
So now I have 6 ducks, 10 chickens, 3 dogs and the 3 little duckies who still live inside.

 

[JessaLynn]

Aww what a nice story

Mine is simple. My 3 year old daughter begged a begged after our trip to Disney World and she feel in love with Donald Duck! So I got 3 Pekins and yes names are Donald,Daisey, and Minnie.We also have 1 Khaki Campbell drake named Duckie he recides with our chickens because our Pekins attack him.Looking for Duckie a new home

Your story is so much nicer.LOL!

 

[Sweetfolly]

Well...my mom wouldn't let me have a horse...or a fuzzy Poitou Donkey...or even a couple of Shetland Sheep - so I settled for ducks

And I'm glad I did - I can't wait to try my new incubator and have some "home grown" babies!

 

[Cetawin]

I blame all of them here! They are all enablers, myself included!

Mine started off with "I just want 6 hens" so home came my 6 specifically picked little girls at a day and half old.

Then 10 weeks later a dear friend said he loved chickens, especially RIRs and BAs and always wanted them but being on the road so much he could not take care of them and his wife would not...sooooo I just happened to be in the feed store the day before his birthday and what do they have? 5 australorp pullet chicks 1 week old and unclaimed...

so they came home with me for his birthday present. They would live here with me and he would pay for their feed and pick up the eggs. They just turned a year old and yes they still with me and my 6 big girls.

THEN DH says "Honey, I found a really nice house we can rent to own and has almost 5 acres....we need more room" This translated to me as "Honey I found a great place with tons more room for tons more critters"

So, the order for 21 pullets went in. In all the breeds I had wanted to try but did not the first time.

They arrived, we moved, built a 12 x 12 coop and I lost one of my older girls at 9 months old to heart failure and one of the youngest group to an injury. I was heartbroken. So one of the little ones turns out to be a roo so I have 29 girls and 1 boy in the coop. I bake seed blocks for them and buy them watermelon....very spoiled brats.

Life was going along good for 6 months except I started watching the duck sections here

and they were absolutely adorable and I always loved baking with duck eggs soooooooooo the order for ducklings went in, there was a minimum order of 10 ducklings so i thought hey cool. I will butcher the extra drakes and keep a trio of each (Anconas and Golden Welsh Harlequins) well 11 arrived

. At 5 weeks old it appears I have 6 drakes and 5 girls sooooooo as they are precious to me....I am looking for more females for the extra boys.

And am ordering two coops from AHappychick here from another thread and seeing images of a bachelor pad for my extra drakes if I cannot find females.

And guess what? a bachelor pad for them would be one coop I am ordering, I am building a 6' x 8' duck house for the other duckies so i will have an empty coop.

NO that cannot be?

Yes it is so I am contemplating buying silkies or silky ducks, I need a broody be is duck or chicken, maybe a pair of east indies for that now extra coop. Or a Rabbit. Yes Yes it cannot be empty.

and it is all BYC's FAULT ALL OF IT

Thank you BYC

And that is how is happened to me.

 

[kawonu]

Started in '07 with a pair at Easter. One got killed by a neighbors dog so we just "had" to get more....now we have over 40 call ducks and 1 Cayuga, 1 mutt drake, and a pair of Indian runners. We also fell into the geese world...but that's another story!

 

[CityChicker]

We always had ducks growing up, so I don't remember ever really being without them. Every year, my brother and I would get a new pet duckling. We would raise them up and shower them with attention until one day, they would disappear and we would get new ducklings.

Funny, the disappearance of the ducks every year seemed to coincide with my grandparents supposedly having gone duck hunting. LOL, really, I don't remember it happening at the same time, but I am sure that is what they did with the ducks and just never told us.

 

[Wifezilla]

I have been trying to garden here in Colorado for quite some time. Despite being in a semi-arid area, I am over run with slugs. I read someplace (no idea where) that ducks LOVED slugs. Since beer bait, poisoning, and picking slugs off of plants never seamed to make a dent in the slug population, I came up with the brilliant idea to get ducks.

I started researching and found out that not only do they eat slugs and other bugs, they lay huge eggs. I was sold on the idea. Of course, it took 2 more years to get hubby to go along with my scheme.

When someone offered FREE khaki campbell ducks through craigslist (it was winter and they wanted fewer mouths to feed), I jumped on it. I ended up with a khaki drake, a khaki hen and a runner hen. Turns out these guys had been used to train herding dogs. I figured they would make good practice ducks since I was a rookie. A short time after that I found buff duck for $6 from a 4-h kid..another craigslist find. I named the first three ducks Jack, Janet, and Chrissy. I kept with the 3's company theme when I got the buff and named her Lana.

Around the same time I decided to try and build an incubator, Janet (the khaki hen) died. Still never figured out what caused it, but I had some eggs I thought were hers so I tried to hatch them. Out of 6, only one hatched and we named it JJ. I didn't want it to be alone so after a week, I found another duck (a rouen named Bungie after it kept trying to jump out of any container you put it in) at Big R and bought my duck a duck

I managed to get JJ to full size, but then it died of a respiratory disease. I was very sad since I hatched this duck out myself. I also had the issue of what to do with my duck's duck. It was pining for it's friend. I had made tweaks to my home made 'bator design and hatched out another duck around then and over a period of 2 weeks, I was able to get the new duck Uno (a khaki buff cross) together with my rouen. They are BFF to this day.

Since I hatched out a baby from Lana and Jack, I decided to sell the parents and keep the kid. My drake Jack was being a jerk to the younger ducks and Lana was loud as all get out anyway. I sold them as a mated pair for $20 and used the proceeds to buy 3 baby welsh harlequin girls.

I now have Chrissy (one of the original practice ducks), Uno the khaki x buff, Bungie the rouen, and the WH triplets Bebe, Shelley and Wendy (named after South Park characters). I am at the maximum capacity for ducks on my property, but who knows. Uno has already tried to brood a softball and she will be laying anytime now...LOL

 

[sonew123]

ha-ALL FROM BYC---6 months ago-I was happy and content with 1 roo and 3 hens. That's all I had for 6 months ever. I found this site and decided read up -for my chickens health sake-well my friend wanted to test her bator so I gave her eggs of mine-I got 2 of my own chicks-wow -My eggs are fertile-so I bought a bator-what good is a bator without eggs? So I ordered eggs from numerous BYC members-not knowing what the heck I was doing are really what breeds they were-how big or little they get etc...Well We live on 6 acres of property-which has alot of water front from a pond. I thought how cool would it be to have our very own duck??? Never did I think I would get one. I ordered eggs from BYC and was told there were no ducks eggs included in my batch-sweet I thought...well at day 26-after all that was going to hatch -hacthed out-I decided to shut the bator off and throw out all other eggs. I get to the last blue egg-picked it up to toss it and it peeped at me-it very peeped!!! I thought wow-this must be a late chicken in a big egg-a big late chicken. I gently put the egg back in and waited and waited -next day WAITEDDDDDDDD. day 27pm-it pips ahhhhhh 2 hours of watching -now my DH is sitting right there too because we are like what is in there? BANG!!!! a duck bill pops out- A DUCK BILL!!! MY DH jumped for joy-"We have a duck we have a duck!" (here's me crap!! we got a very duck! ) Not happy-I had to help him out because he was stuck and boom "Chuckie" slid into my hands and it was love at first sight! I love my chuckie buddy-he'll be 1 month old this week-we go for walks together-I take him swimming in the pond everyday-a wild mallard flew in to see him/her yesterday-here he is at 2 days old

and at a month

isn't he precious-don't know what kind he is-but lucky for him-it all worked out-but he's IT!!! What a piggy

 

[Wifezilla]

SURPRISE!

 

[sonew123]

yes a surprise is right-you know where he's been living for the last month??? MY bathtub! Thats right 3 times a dasy I clean out my tub-put new toewls in for his bed and his teddy bear, food dish, and big water bowl. He loves to chew on my fingers-loves to snuggle and nip at the dogs noses-he is very sweet-we are picking up a pen for him this weekend-enclosed pen with a wittle beddy for him too-picked up 8 bails of hay for the winter months for warmth and heating lights for winter too! This surprise duck has cost me a fortune! I hope it's a she-I hear quaking already-It's getting a touch of angel wing that I started working on last night-ahhh-What animal love won't do to people!