My Love Affair With Ducks...

[Texag87]

I love growing sunflowers. We have 4 on the front fence and a dozen in the garden. Ours are the Mammouth .

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

True story. I lost two ducks late summer and fall. Next spring a sunflower came out of each of their graves. I guess they ate the seeds before they died.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

You know, I had never thought of ducks being like dogs and chickens like cats, but I think you are right.

Another story about ducks i have heart: During the 1800's into the early 1900's people in Europe (dunno about the Americas, but guess it was similar) were eating duck-eggs instead of chicken eggs. Ducks were used to keep the vegetation at fire-ponds, canals and other bodies of water at bey with the additional benefits that they could not fly away (like xickens), could be herded to their workspace and back (unlike xickens) and laid more eggs than the, at those times, exotic xickens.
A xicken egg in those times was an exotic delicacy, like today maybe a pheasant egg. - Something special for the filthy wealthy.
Then one dark day somebody invented the battery cage and the demise of the humble duck began: A duck will rather starve herself to death than sit her whole life in a wire cage where she is fed in the front, eggs roll out to the back and poop disappears through the floor. Ducks must have their freedom! They need to have fresh air, waddle on natural ground instead of wire mesh and water to clean themselves.
Battery cages for ducks simply don't work. - Unfortunately they work for xickens!
Suddenly what was something for the rich became so cheap that everybody could afford it: The xicken-egg.
That is the reason why most of us grew up with scrambled, sunnyside up, easy-over and hard-boiled xicken-eggs. And the more greedy the egg-producers became - i do not call them farmers, because they are no farmers!!! - Anyways, the more greedy those producers became, the more did they abuse the xickens and lower the quality of those eggs became. I vividly remember the hard-boiled eggs one Sunday morning, that smelled like a can of fish when we cracked them open. First supermarket eggs ever in my life…
Well the "quality" of the xicken-eggs from the supermarkets improved - or was the method of abusing the poor hens that was perfected? - So the whole family got used to supermarket eggs…
Until i got my hands on some eggs from free-ranged - really free ranged - xickens back in Houston. What a difference! I stopped eating the scrambled eggs the hotels are serving for the complimentary breakfast, those hard boiled eggs tasted like cardboard.
Then after we moved to West Virginia, where no blood-sucking HOA could forbid us to have some xickens, my wife told me: You know, duck-eggs are even better than those eggs from the free xickens. So we got our first ducks and i must admit, she is right! Even compared to the eggs from the half wild xickens of our neighbors, which are delicious, a duck egg tastes better. - Ok, unless my girls get their bills on the frog ponds in spring, those eggs have a slightly - umm froggy? taste.
What i meant to say in short: Treat your birds good and you get good eggs! Regardless of quail, dux, xickens, guineax or whatever other eggs y'all eat. - And i would love to see all those hard working, but happy dux!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Oh dear, I know what you’re saying. Those faces, though!

Beware ordering all females! Remember, that’s what I did and Ralphie appeared!

I would not mind having one drake in 8-10 ducklings, way better than having three cork-screwers out of four! And as far as i have heart, Metzer farms has a very high success rate with identifying ducks. It is more likely to have a surprise-duck if you order drakes only.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I know my ducks cuss me, so we can call that a form of rioting. But then again, they still let me love on them. Or maybe it’s more like tolerating me.

They will always love their momma!!! - Even though as a teenager the just have to distance from you to be allowed into the cool kids clubhouse!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

You cannot say that!

Turkeys are feathered dogs. Dux are like vermin of some kind...

I thought about turkeys more as feathered T-Rexes…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Dang duck. He’s cute and all, but he threw a flippin wrench in my plans.

Uuum! - I wouldn't call it a wrench. It looks more like a danglin' corkscrew…
Wait until next summer when all of your girls go broody at the same time and you have a new generation of fluffballs playing around your feet. Your heart will melt like a piece of butter in the hot Alabama summer sun and you will gladly share a cigar with Ralphie!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I have tried many times to catch Ralphie’s Whistle Grunt on video and I finally did. However, it isn’t that easy to hear.

Also, he did a real NO NO yesterday. He tried to climb on top of Gabby, my Speckled Sussex. That just ain’t gonna fly. She got loose from him and came back after him. To my knowledge she is the only one of my hens to have flogged any of the ducks. You’d think the goofy duck would remember her. What am I gonna do?

I do hope you have only large xicken breeds that are able to defend themselves against a hormone overloaded young drake! - You may want to keep them separated until Ralphie has used up his initial boost of testosterone and calms down…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I love growing sunflowers. We have 4 on the front fence and a dozen in the garden. Ours are the Mammouth .

Whenever the ducks dig one of their mudholes, i drop in some sunflower seeds - just from their food - and put a wire-mesh cylinder around until the sunflowers are at least 3' tall.
They till, i sew.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

My three peepers and one honk had their first real bath today:

Momma Pinball took them out of the duck-house when they were just three days old and all they could do was a quick dip in the pool before the grown-ups evicted them. But today it was so hot here that all the grown-ups were too lazy to get up when i filled up the pool.