- Sep 27, 2012
- 31
- 0
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Hello, I am Bambi. March 30, 2012 I went to TSC and bought 6 chickens (3 RIR which are really red stars, and 3 bantams) and 2 ducks (mallards). The first night one chicken died (bantam). They all raised up pretty good, I could pick up the chickens. We ended up with only one rooster (bantam) he was beautiful. Black with the irredescent colors, tail that curled high in the air. he learned to crow and was so proud of himself. Then one of the reds dissapeared, then my sister caught the neighbors dog running off with the rooster. The neighbor has since gotten rid of the dogs. Then a mallard disappered. Since the rooster disappered we decided to let the one banty go to sitting hoping they were old enough to make babies. We also put 2 of the reds eggs under her too, which was a good thing because her eggs were not fertile. One of the red babies died while trying to hatch, the other one lived. it is white with a few black spots. We have them seperate from the other birds. The birds were free range and got locked up at night, until one day i heard the chickens making noise and looked outside where there were 2 new dogs trying to get to them. I ran the dogs off and put the remaining 2 chickens and one duck back in the pen. A few days after the chick was born, we brought it and momma back with the rest. No sooner than we set momma down, the duck tries to mate with her agian. (this is one reason why we separated them to begin with, he didnt try it much with the other chickens, and then quit completely when the other duck came up missing) he will not stay off of her so we had to seperate again. I thought someone was going to buy him off of me, but they never showed up. A few weeks ago, we bought 7 indian runner ducks, and 14 black 4-h sex links, but they are part red too... Quackers (the mallard) thinks he is a chicken. He even tried to roost with them. I was hoping when we got the indian runners, he would make friends and realize he was a duck, but that has not worked. today we get up and 3 of the sex links are dead.... This is what prompted me to finally join this site, to hopefully find out why. I have used this site for reference for months now... Well off to another message board to find out why!!!