Look what I get to babysit. LOL

[duckman]

you are welcome.

sorry about the confusion.

besides whats one more.

 

[Acre of Blessings]

1 more is about 25 lbs of food a month.

Ooops, forgot this one

 

[duckman]

ducks can forage for about 80% of their diet.

 

[Acre of Blessings]

The only time I can let my chickens out is when myself and my kids are out there to keep an eye on them, due to neighbors that are unsociable. So the same will go with the ducks. They (neighbors) also have ducks so I am thinking about a leg band for mine to tell the difference between theirs and mine, due to the fact that theirs come over and visit my chickens.

This way there will and should not be any argument about it.

 

[BantyHugger]

Since they're in the pen you should be able to grab them and check for curly tail feathers on boys.(its above the tail not on the actual tail)How old will they be when you adopt them? If you accidentally get 2 boys the owner will probably swap you for breeding. If you get 2 girls, very few people refuse swapping for one of them. I have NO idea about the loud vs. quiet quacking. When 1 quacks they all quack at my house. Good luck!
Pekins are a great choice. Mine are excellent mothers.

 

[Acre of Blessings]

I will try to get a close up pic of one that sound horse and one that doesn't tomorrow. Maybe this will help you all to help me figure this out.

 

[DuckLady]

The males will sound like wahk-wahk......wahk-wahk. Fairly quiet.

Pekin girls are feathered braying donkeys and if you pick them up will quack bloody murder. Their voice is sharp and loud.

here is a female duck quacking
http://kiddyhouse.com/Farm/ducks.html
Go to the paragraph
Do you know what does a duck say ? (4th paragraph down)
And in the first line is a link to a wave file

 

[Acre of Blessings]

This is actually harder than I thought. I will try to do a video tomorrow and post it, if possible, or just picks. That duck on the kiddiehouse.com sounded horse to me, but maybe it just my speakers.

Thanks Terrielacy

 

[zatsdeb]

I have 1 pekin hen, and she earns her keep! we sell her eggs, and right now she is sitting on a bunch of eggs, mostly guinea!!!
If you get a breeding pair then you will definately have little ones if you let her hatch some out!!!

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

I have to agree with everyone. I have a 3 month old Pekin Female and my god is she loud! In the morning it's her voice I hear before everyone else, WHUACK, WHUACK, WHUACK. I have made the comment to my husband that it sounds like we have a laugh track on the farm in the morning because her quack sounds like the laugh of a 80 year old woman who has smoked 3 packs a day... I only have one male duck and he does indeed sound like he's whispering.

Now you can actually turn them over and look. I've done this and what you want to do is move the feathers away from the vent as best you can (you may need help, it's SO much easier to actually sex them before they get feathers but it can be done) and using your thumb and finger spread it out a little while pressing around it. If a tiny little spiral shaped penis pops out in the middle (and I mean TINY and almost clear) then you've got a bouncing boy, if you see nothing but clean pink bottom then it's a girl. Because of how hard it can be to see a boy I would still go by voice at this age but you can certainly try to take a peek up their feathers