*~*Runner Duck Club*~*

[Miss Lydia]

I'm sure a lot of you already know this but runners are amazing animals.
Yesterday I was out side with them taken more pictures and all the sudden they stopped talking and frozze in place. Before I new it I was surrounded on all sides. Took me a second to figure out what was going on. They all had there heads tilted to one side and they all was looking up. So I did the same. I jumped up and got between my flock and what I seen in the sky. Two hawks where checking out what was for dinner. While we all watched them a small flock of birds came in and chased the would be killers away. To much excitement let me tell ya. The thing is. Was my flock protecting me or was I protecting them? Or was it going both ways? I believe we was protecting each other.

I think it was both ways too, but they were looking to you as their protection more. How sweet.I love it when I hear the crows making noise because it usually means they are harassing the hawks and keeping then other wise busy so they can't be eyeing my flock.

 

[HazeyEm]

Hello

I'm new to BYC I have two runner ducks, I don't know much about them as I adopted them at 5 weeks old from a children's nursery where they were hatched.

I was wondering if any of you might be able to help me work out their gender, I think I have one of each as their tails look quite different but neither have curly up feathers yet which is all googles come up with for identifying drakes. I also tried to tell by the noise they make as I found something on Google about the volume and pitch of their quacks but mine both just gave me a loud honk when I tried :S

This is a picture of their tails

I'm thinking top one male, bottom one female?

Thanks Hazel

 

[LaPoulet]

Hello

I'm new to BYC I have two runner ducks, I don't know much about them as I adopted them at 5 weeks old from a children's nursery where they were hatched.

I was wondering if any of you might be able to help me work out their gender, I think I have one of each as their tails look quite different but neither have curly up feathers yet which is all googles come up with for identifying drakes. I also tried to tell by the noise they make as I found something on Google about the volume and pitch of their quacks but mine both just gave me a loud honk when I tried :S

This is a picture of their tails

I'm thinking top one male, bottom one female?

Thanks Hazel

The easiest way to tell is that a female is loud and make louder noises than the males and the males have a whispering kind of sound like they have laryngitis.

 

[LaPoulet]

Hello

I'm new to BYC I have two runner ducks, I don't know much about them as I adopted them at 5 weeks old from a children's nursery where they were hatched.

I was wondering if any of you might be able to help me work out their gender, I think I have one of each as their tails look quite different but neither have curly up feathers yet which is all googles come up with for identifying drakes. I also tried to tell by the noise they make as I found something on Google about the volume and pitch of their quacks but mine both just gave me a loud honk when I tried :S

This is a picture of their tails

I'm thinking top one male, bottom one female?

Thanks Hazel

The easiest way to tell is that a female is loud and make louder noises than the males and the males have a whispering kind of sound like they have laryngitis.

They are very cute. When they are between 3-4 months old, the male will get a curl on the top part of his tail also.

 

[Miss Lydia]

@HazeyEm Welcome to BYC!!

It was about 6 weeks that I was able to tell gender by voice my ducks are loud quackers the drakes barely quack above a whisper..

Your Runners are adorable..

 

[AimToMisbehave]

Uuuggggghhhhh! All my girls started waiting until they were let out of the pen in the morning to lay their eggs around the yard, so I got some ceramic eggs to try to get the back to laying in their usual nests I'm their house. Now, Gwaine has apparently gone broody, and is spending a lot of her time on this nest of two ceramic eggs

I haven't caught her actually sitting, but she's obviously used a number of her own feathers to pad the nest, and she's in the house almost every time I go outside during the day. Weyoun also seems to be spending a lot of time in the house with her.

So Gwaine and Weyoun are totally sitting on fake eggs all day long (they each have their own nest with 2 fakes in it), and I'm starting to feel super bad for them. They still come out for food and water, including a stop at the splash pan (apparently they get first dibs when I refill it) and they still look healthy, but it's not like they're ever going to hatch. Should I take the eggs away? Or let them keep sitting on them, and hope they'll figure it out eventually?

 

[LaPoulet]

Uuuggggghhhhh! All my girls started waiting until they were let out of the pen in the morning to lay their eggs around the yard, so I got some ceramic eggs to try to get the back to laying in their usual nests I'm their house. Now, Gwaine has apparently gone broody, and is spending a lot of her time on this nest of two ceramic eggs

I haven't caught her actually sitting, but she's obviously used a number of her own feathers to pad the nest, and she's in the house almost every time I go outside during the day. Weyoun also seems to be spending a lot of time in the house with her.

So Gwaine and Weyoun are totally sitting on fake eggs all day long (they each have their own nest with 2 fakes in it), and I'm starting to feel super bad for them. They still come out for food and water, including a stop at the splash pan (apparently they get first dibs when I refill it) and they still look healthy, but it's not like they're ever going to hatch. Should I take the eggs away? Or let them keep sitting on them, and hope they'll figure it out eventually?

I would take the eggs away.

 

[Miss Lydia]

So Gwaine and Weyoun are totally sitting on fake eggs all day long (they each have their own nest with 2 fakes in it), and I'm starting to feel super bad for them. They still come out for food and water, including a stop at the splash pan (apparently they get first dibs when I refill it) and they still look healthy, but it's not like they're ever going to hatch. Should I take the eggs away? Or let them keep sitting on them, and hope they'll figure it out eventually?

I tried that one year with one of my scovy ducks she went broody first so I gave her 4 ceramic eggs to sit on thinking she would get up when they didn't hatch. Well she sat for the 35 days and kept on sitting so I took her eggs and she kept on sitting I'd pick her up and move her outside close the door and she would hang on to the hardware cloth wanting back inside. So I finally gave up and let her back in. She missed her whole summer vacation because she would not stop brooding. This has been the last 2 yrs. So this year I gave her some Runner eggs to hatch and she is very content now that she brooded and actually hatched something. At 5 yrs old now I hope next year when she goes broody and doesn't get to hatch she won't sit all summer long. Hopefully if you decide to take away the eggs your girls will eventually get up soon after. I'd take the eggs away when they are out of the nest though so it looks like something else got them and not you since in the wild preds are the ones that usually get eggs from a nest. [don't know if this will make a difference or not though]

 

[Duck Hill]

Cinnamon (Trout duck) and Crocus (Fawn and White drake)

are proud to announce the birth of their offspring:



But her three sisters are terribly jealous. (Not really!)

 

[Sagibaro]

Cinnamon (Trout duck) and Crocus (Fawn and White drake)

are proud to announce the birth of their offspring:



But her three sisters are terribly jealous. (Not really!)

Beautiful!