My Love Affair With Ducks...

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I tried a pitch fork to clean the coop works like crap, I use a garden rake and grain shovel and a broom to get the fine stuff.

Pitch fork, round shovel and broom.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Now let me clarify one thing! I have kissed many a thing, but I have never swapped spit with an animal. Swapping spit with another human is bad enough when you actually think about it.

A dog's mouth is cleaner than a human mouth.

Okay, @duluthralphie, I know you were cracking up reading this. You had to! This was a tiny ‘Ralphie Roast’ for sure!

I sure enjoyed it.

Yes, I know. Even though I saw no ill effects, it could not have been good for them. I’m thankful I realized what was causing my nose bleeds and stopped using the DE. I guess I could have used a mask (as I think the directions request), but my birds don’t have masks.

It is put in chicken feed. Read the ingredients. It’s way down the list, but it’s there.

I bet it's to absorb moisture.
that is the only thing I can tell it's really great at..
and I can see why that would cause you nosebleeds as well when you breathe that up your nose it probably dries up all the membranes in there.

Hell i did combine hay, straw and pine shavings! The result with, at that time, 19 ducks was a ½ foot thick hardboard that was almost impossible to remove from the duck house with my pitch-fork.

I can imagine 19 full size ducks would be totally different then what I'm dealing with.
For me straw alone just as not absorb enough moisture to use it exclusively.

It works excellent on things with an exoskeleton: »Diatomite is of value as an insecticide, because of its abrasive and physico-sorptive properties. The fine powder absorbs lipids from the waxy outer layer of the exoskeletons of many species of insects; this layer acts as a barrier that resists the loss of water vapour from the insect's body. Damaging the layer increases the evaporation of water from their bodies, so that they dehydrate, often fatally.«
See here under "Pest Control". - but as said, seeing these little b@stards burn in gasoline is much more satisfying, especially if they had just stung the life out of your legs…

Well the stuff I bought never worked on anything around here.
I bought mine primarily to keep ants from invading the ducks house I had my first two calls in.
I put it all over the entire wooden floor in there.
The ants happily crawled around in it.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Shelf life.

Dear Lord! They would use duck poop if that would extend that "shelf life"!!!
I'm more and more convinced to produce as much of what i eat myself!
Industrial food turns more and more into a witches brew…

 

[Angileen]

Agree!

I leave food out all the time also. But I leave it inside the coop. They still come running to me and act like they are starving because I do give them some treats every day.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I don't have ducks now but had them as a child, I just use straw it's cheap and easy to find. I used to have a Rouen Duck who would steal all the eggs from the other ducks and add them to her nest. She used to hatch out the largest clutches I was amazed she could incubate them all.

Ducks can flatten out! - really flatten out, like pancake doe!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

There must be a beekeepers union that owns a few senators in WV...

The official reason is to keep the quality of WV honey as high as possible…
(And get rich in charging fees…)

 

[shawluvsbirds]

I leave food out all the time also. But I leave it inside the coop. They still come running to me and act like they are starving because I do give them some treats every day.

Do ducks ever act like they're not starving?
My Cayuga ducks are worse than the calls.
I call them our little piggie ducks. Always begging for food.
My husband calls them water turkeys

 

[Mimi13]

I still have that letter size fresnel lense i used to cook them alive… Plenty of hot sunshine in Houston and i turned it into a death-ray. Nothing is too brutal when it comes to fire-ants. Some people flood their nests with molten aluminum!

I have seen those videos. Those things are actually beautiful.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Don't have fire ants where I live. But the mosquitos can carry you away. Some summers are so bad I run screaming and yelling from my vegetable garden all while choking on a mouth full of the rotten no good for nothing pests! My sister in law is from Mississippi, she used to say they had bad mosquitos, went there for a visit when she and my brother still lived there and never noticed 1 mosquito. Don't know if there was any or if they were so much smaller than here in Minnesota that I didn't notice them. I live in a rural community by a river and have a pond so I know what mosquito hell can be. People who live in cities have no clue.

I know what you're talking about: Summer-vacation in Finland… plenty of sunshine, ponds, lakes and mosquitoes. A good way to lose weight…

 

[Mimi13]

I have bad allergies never had them as a child. Took six Doctors to finally figure it out about 8 years ago. My allergy doctor said it was rare for someone to have as many and severe symptoms that I was having from my allergies. Dah! People can die from allergies. I now have to take one 24 hr allergy pill, nasal spray, inhalers, Montelukast, and 2 Benadryl 3 to 4 times a day. On occasion I have had to tale prednisone to relieve symptoms. You can become allergic to something if you are around it too much. I wish I had a simple running nose or watery eyes like most people get that is nothing compared to what happens. If I don't take my meds. I would be disabled. So if the Zombie apocalypse ever comes I need to make sure I am stocked up!

Everyone in my immediate family has bad allergies. My oldest son has severe asthma and was hospitalized in December with double pneumonia. (I really think he had a case of the Corona virus.)