Illinois...

[Molpet]

What about the wings and back? Do you toss those? Backs make great stock!

Normally yes
Freezer full of necks backs and wings from birds that went through the plucker. And bone broth... With the storm coming and my bum leg I didn't want to drag the plucker out and back to the basement.

 

[Molpet]

Well, I'm not confused, but many things roll thru my mind
Is this a POSSIBILITY,,,

Spoiler: Happens every year,,,

View attachment 2034741

LOL
Nope, he has a crooked toe so he's not going to be sold either

 

[Faraday40]

Look who was in our screened room again!

When I opened the door it flew to the gate (in pic) It waited until I actually stepped out, then flew away into a tree.

Poor bantams were all stuffed into the nest boxes this morning.

 

[BReeder!]

Look who was in our screened room again!

When I opened the door it flew to the gate (in pic) It waited until I actually stepped out, then flew away into a tree.

Poor bantams were all stuffed into the nest boxes this morning.

Isn't there a screen door there? If the screen is damaged it's not expensive to repair yourself. It might be worthwhile to have that room fully screened so the hawk (and anything else) cannot get in.

 

[BReeder!]

Happy Fat Tuesday! Eat up!

 

[Faraday40]

Isn't there a screen door there? If the screen is damaged it's not expensive to repair yourself. It might be worthwhile to have that room fully screened so the hawk (and anything else) cannot get in.

We had a Great Dane who "remodeled" parts of the house. She destroyed the door. It was hand made by the orig owner & not a standard size. The idea was to save up and install real windows to make the patio into a usable 3 season room. In the meantime our friend made a little gate to help keep leaves from blowing in and dogs from running out.

Usually critters shy away from coming into an enclosed area. That's why we pulled the garbage cans into the room. This hawk is very, very bold.

 

[Molpet]

Finally caught one of the opossums that visit the poultry yard at night. Good size male. At least one small one still out there.
I'm pretty sure they took an Uber to get here. Town people dump their catches in the forest preserve I'm next to or my side drive
Got one small one a month ago and she was very skinny.

 

[Molpet]

Look who was in our screened room again!

When I opened the door it flew to the gate (in pic) It waited until I actually stepped out, then flew away into a tree.

Poor bantams were all stuffed into the nest boxes this morning.

Rotten predators, and you can't legally do much with hawks. Try a scarecrow, hanging CDs let the dog go after it

 

[OpelBlitz]

Wow, I've been away for quite some time. My apologies, life just got away from me with taking on new jobs, new projects, and... new ducks! I posted back in the end of May 2018 that I had three ducks (three females). That has changed to.. nine (6 females, 3 male)! Some good and bad related to that (but mostly good); let's see if I can catch you all up on the last two years and we'll just go chronologically here.

Shortly after I got my initial three ducks, I started posting about it at work and coworkers suggested that I start a Slack channel dedicated to them. There was already a channel for dogs, and one for cats, soooo why not ducks. And I did. I was shamelessly plugging my ducks in both of those channels and gathered a LOT of interest, and they started joining my newly created channel in droves. It escalated to the point where it was suggested that I actually start an Instagram page for them. So I did that too! Fast forwarding a little here...

In March of 2019, we decided that we wanted two more ducks. The three we had were a blast and I learned so much, and the duck house I built was, in my opinion, plenty big to accommodate more residents (24sqft). So the "Chick Days" event at the newer Tractor Supply in Wauconda was fast approaching, and we wanted to ensure we got there the same day the new ducks arrived. We weren't terribly concerned with the breed, and figured we were batting 1000 for females so far... The ducks came, we found two we liked, brought them home. Over the next two days, I built a 2'x4' brooder in the house that facilitated easy maintenance (such as a plastic floor and an integrated grid for their food/water area). Prior to that I had a large rubbermaid container alongside the bed with the things we used to raise the original three. Thankfully it didn't smell too much before I transferred them, although they definitely missed us for a while... So I actually kept them in the Rubbermaid for longer since I can keep them next to our bed. After some time, we finally named them Moxie and Roxie; Moxie turned out to be male and Roxie was a female. She was definitely daddy's little girl; she LOVED laying on my chest while we watched TV. They grew up happily in our house until it was a bit warmer out when it was time to merge the flocks. It was nice to get the brooder out of my frontroom, to say the least.

A bit later in the year we had to watch a friends' flock of 5 muscovies in our yard. They all mostly got along, but definitely kept themselves separated. It got a bit crowded in the duck house, but it worked out. Until the owner came to get them; one escaped from my yard without any trace, but magically reappeared a few hours later. What a day that was!

In July, two major events happened. The last weekend of July, were out of town (I can control the duckhouse's door remotely with the hardware I built, and I have a webcam inside their house so I can see when they're all inside and I can close it). The five ducks weren't going into their house that night. I was unable to reach out to anyone to help herd them in their house; I don't know whether they just can't see it or what, or if they sensed the change of us being gone. I'll come back to this though). Anyway, after a virtually sleepless night we got home to discover that Charcoal, our Rouen, was completely missing from the yard with no trace, and Tommy seemed to have survived an animal attack with some minor bleeding on her head and a beak-ful of teeth marks. We were hit hard with our first loss and learned some valuable lessons about security. Even to this day, we can only speculate what actually happened, but the best theory we have at the moment is a raccoon raid on the backyard. I discovered there was a family of six living in the tree literally a few feet behind the duck house and I knew they liked to come down and munch on leftover food I left out for the ducks. I ended up killing three of them before I decided it was more humane (and less of a mess) to just relocate the other three as I trapped them.

But literally a few days before, we rescued a rather diverse flock of five ducks by a lake. Two Black Swedish, Blue Swedish, A Welsh Harlequin, and a Cayuga. They were perhaps a month or two old at that time, couldn't positively identify their sex at the time as they were still peeping for the most part. Two males and three female to add to the duck army. At this point, there's plenty of lawn-trampling power to make me think how to better protect my lawn. lol

So anyway, there's a long-needed update. With the temperatures sort of warming up outside, the ducks have devastated the grass in their favorite areas in my backyard and I'll definitely need to repair them when it warms up more outside, and I'm beginning to think their days of free-ranging are over because of the overwhelming damage to my lawn. So, what do people generally put on the ground of their runs?

 

[Justso]

Wow, I've been away for quite some time. My apologies, life just got away from me with taking on new jobs, new projects, and... new ducks! I posted back in the end of May 2018 that I had three ducks (three females). That has changed to.. nine (6 females, 3 male)! Some good and bad related to that (but mostly good); let's see if I can catch you all up on the last two years and we'll just go chronologically here.

Shortly after I got my initial three ducks, I started posting about it at work and coworkers suggested that I start a Slack channel dedicated to them. There was already a channel for dogs, and one for cats, soooo why not ducks. And I did. I was shamelessly plugging my ducks in both of those channels and gathered a LOT of interest, and they started joining my newly created channel in droves. It escalated to the point where it was suggested that I actually start an Instagram page for them. So I did that too! Fast forwarding a little here...

In March of 2019, we decided that we wanted two more ducks. The three we had were a blast and I learned so much, and the duck house I built was, in my opinion, plenty big to accommodate more residents (24sqft). So the "Chick Days" event at the newer Tractor Supply in Wauconda was fast approaching, and we wanted to ensure we got there the same day the new ducks arrived. We weren't terribly concerned with the breed, and figured we were batting 1000 for females so far... The ducks came, we found two we liked, brought them home. Over the next two days, I built a 2'x4' brooder in the house that facilitated easy maintenance (such as a plastic floor and an integrated grid for their food/water area). Prior to that I had a large rubbermaid container alongside the bed with the things we used to raise the original three. Thankfully it didn't smell too much before I transferred them, although they definitely missed us for a while... So I actually kept them in the Rubbermaid for longer since I can keep them next to our bed. After some time, we finally named them Moxie and Roxie; Moxie turned out to be male and Roxie was a female. She was definitely daddy's little girl; she LOVED laying on my chest while we watched TV. They grew up happily in our house until it was a bit warmer out when it was time to merge the flocks. It was nice to get the brooder out of my frontroom, to say the least.

A bit later in the year we had to watch a friends' flock of 5 muscovies in our yard. They all mostly got along, but definitely kept themselves separated. It got a bit crowded in the duck house, but it worked out. Until the owner came to get them; one escaped from my yard without any trace, but magically reappeared a few hours later. What a day that was!

In July, two major events happened. The last weekend of July, were out of town (I can control the duckhouse's door remotely with the hardware I built, and I have a webcam inside their house so I can see when they're all inside and I can close it). The five ducks weren't going into their house that night. I was unable to reach out to anyone to help herd them in their house; I don't know whether they just can't see it or what, or if they sensed the change of us being gone. I'll come back to this though). Anyway, after a virtually sleepless night we got home to discover that Charcoal, our Rouen, was completely missing from the yard with no trace, and Tommy seemed to have survived an animal attack with some minor bleeding on her head and a beak-ful of teeth marks. We were hit hard with our first loss and learned some valuable lessons about security. Even to this day, we can only speculate what actually happened, but the best theory we have at the moment is a raccoon raid on the backyard. I discovered there was a family of six living in the tree literally a few feet behind the duck house and I knew they liked to come down and munch on leftover food I left out for the ducks. I ended up killing three of them before I decided it was more humane (and less of a mess) to just relocate the other three as I trapped them.

But literally a few days before, we rescued a rather diverse flock of five ducks by a lake. Two Black Swedish, Blue Swedish, A Welsh Harlequin, and a Cayuga. They were perhaps a month or two old at that time, couldn't positively identify their sex at the time as they were still peeping for the most part. Two males and three female to add to the duck army. At this point, there's plenty of lawn-trampling power to make me think how to better protect my lawn. lol

So anyway, there's a long-needed update. With the temperatures sort of warming up outside, the ducks have devastated the grass in their favorite areas in my backyard and I'll definitely need to repair them when it warms up more outside, and I'm beginning to think their days of free-ranging are over because of the overwhelming damage to my lawn. So, what do people generally put on the ground of their runs?

I'm a wood chips and leaves user, however I do only have chickens. I'm not sure about ducks. I used to care for a flock of runners for my friend, they were pretty destructive birds! My friend would rotate their enclosure once a week or two to a different part of the yard.