Show off your house ducks!

[Amiga]

Just thinking, I know the more protein in their diet, the richer the poop can smell. I suspect there are exceptions to everything, too. My ducks occasionally let go an eye-burner. I think the technical term is cecal. But some have claimed that their ducks' poo has a milder aroma when fed certain things, I think I recall fermented feed being one of them… For what it's worth.

Mine are okay, but they have a pen in the basement, not in my room. I have, however, occasionally napped with them. A few of them cuddle up to me. A few try to pick my pockets, so I empty them before joining the duckies.

 

[Amykins]

We did the fermented feed for a while and I agree, it did help, but we stopped after she was diagnosed with an e.coli infection in her nasal passages (probably from her gross habit of poop eating).


I am also kinda concerned she may be developing angel wing...her feed is 17% protein, I thought it was only 15%. And her primaries are juuuust now starting to poke through so I don't quite know if it is angel wing or not, but I don't wanna take any chances with her. They stick straight up and she doesn't tuck her "hand" under her "elbow" like most ducks do.

...This diva duck is gonna be the end of me.

 

[kukupecpec]

2 CHAINS!! Oh god I almost choked on my coffee XD

Fun story time! I know this isn't necessarily relegated to house ducks, but man, I wish I were entertained as easily as Wobbles is. I placed her on some paper towels while I cleaned out her pen, and she's been happily chirping away playing with them for over an hour now. She's not eating it, she's honest to goodness FOLDING them! She pulls one corner up, steps on it, pats it down with her bill....lifts another corner, steps on it, pats it down with her bill...out of corners? No problem, lift it up, drag it away a few inches and start over!

I agree, teach her to fold your laundry! ChaCha is a few bricks short of a load so use what you got lady!

LOL! I just cracked up reading these! Thats a good idea! We have 5 humans and 1 duck in our house so help with laundry would be awesome!!!!

I posted about avian fash and no neg comments. They dont even let them be submitted to be deleted!! When I tried to leave my feedback, I got a message saying it would be reviewed before publishing which is surely how they avoid anyone posting honest opinions on the duck items. I got a call from the person who made mine and it turned out that the guy who is actually paid and contracted to do them had his elderly mother doing them - mine atleast - since he is out of state!! Turns out she has never owned or cared for a duck so having things as huge as they were didnt seem off to her. Not that you need to have a duck to make diapers but with no experience with ducks at all certainly would make it tough to eyeball it, in my opinion.
Yes the collar was a mess too and the bow was safety pinned to it! Idk if irs just my duck but Deema goes NUTS for anything shiny so having her wear a sharp and shiny pin right where she can reach it was no way gonna happen!
Can you believe it? Sorry to hear anyone else had a bad time with them

Glad to know Deema wasn't dying with the panting, lol!! She only did it the first 48 hours or so after that 1st egg, now shes like the rest of us seasoned moms, lol, done it once....do it 1,000 times! LOL

ChaCha still pants when she lays every once in a while, but it's rare, and it's usually a HUGE egg when it happens so I know she's straining a little bit. What do you do with your eggs? What does everyone do with their eggs? I almost never eat eggs, my chickens are mostly pets but the mini's are all breeders so all of those eggs go in the incubator. Even my Ancona duck eggs go in the bator so I'm not totally sure what to do with ChaCha's massive eggs!

She doesn't wear a diaper at night. I have a medium sized dog crate lined with a fleece liner I made with moving pad sewn underneath the fleece for absorbency. She also has a big fluffy pillow in there every night that she sleeps on, so most of the poops fall onto the fleece liner away from her bed. The room only smells if I've neglected to clean it after a couple days... Then again I think years of having small animals in my bedroom has made my nose not really smell animal smells too much. She's also only like 2 pounds, I'ts definitely not as much as my outside ducks poop, nor as big. I also have two male rats and a rabbit that reside in my bedroom, that I don't smell unless I have waited too long to clean the cages, but my dad acts like it reeks! Nobody else can smell it, though.

Maybe since your ChaCha is bigger her poops are nastier? What type of bedding do you use in her kennel? I can't imagine what her bum looks like after wearing a diaper all night!

Wow you are brave! We tried the diaperless over night thing with my goose and it was a nightmare. She would get dirty and her feet would get all nasty and we were going through fleece crate liners like it was going out of style! The smell was none too pleasant either, and I was never able to get her not to shoot the poop through the sides o the crate, even when she had a solid crate she always seemed to aim for the door! So ChaCha is diapered all the time unless she is playing outside. When she hasn't been outside she gets daily baths and that helps with the nasty butt, but if she spends some time outside she usually cleans herself up nicely. Her vent feathers are not a pretty color though. I'll see if I can't get a picture. It's only bad after a cecal tar bleh! If you use a strong enough layer of absorbent material overnight all the liquid is sucked out and their poop is just a solid ball with not much wetness left so it really doesn't make a mess, it just stinks.
When we had the undiapered goose her kennel floor was a few layers of fleece. ChaCha's little kennel (the one that sits on my bedside table) has a super fluffy small doggy bed, her big kennel with her food and water is all fleece - 8 layers all around - floor, walls, ceiling, doors. Usually one of the doors is open, the other stays closed to control the food flinging. Only the top layer is changed/washed. The other layers are "quack suppressors" for when she has to be locked up if I'm gone (although lately I've just been leaving her outside with the chickens to play and swim and poop to her hearts content, it's been super rainy and she loves to play in the rain, and as a plus she smells super delicious afterward lol) I've got a huge list of things to take good pictures of so it makes more sense when I talk about it.

Wobbles sleeps on a pillow as well, but I have to wrap it in cling film for easy clean-up. Otherwise I go through 'em like tissue paper and it's starting to get expensive. :/ I don't know what to do about the smell, either. I have a VERY sensitive gag reflex!

Someone mentioned a while ago how she trained her house chickens to poop over the side of the bed...how the heck did she do that?!

Would you like to try a waterproof pillow case? I have a couple I've been testing for JUST that reason =)
The smell I can't help you with lol they are just STINKY

Just thinking, I know the more protein in their diet, the richer the poop can smell. I suspect there are exceptions to everything, too. My ducks occasionally let go an eye-burner. I think the technical term is cecal. But some have claimed that their ducks' poo has a milder aroma when fed certain things, I think I recall fermented feed being one of them… For what it's worth.

Mine are okay, but they have a pen in the basement, not in my room. I have, however, occasionally napped with them. A few of them cuddle up to me. A few try to pick my pockets, so I empty them before joining the duckies.

I feed a lot of fodder, I haven't noticed much of a change from when she was on just pellets? But she doesn't get much by way of rich treats. Grapes give her gas though lol
Speaking of eating for the effects of pooh, has anyone ever fed their duck or goose a bunch of blackberries? We used them as training treats with my mini chickens in school and they pooped purple for a couple hours. That was kinda fun lol

We did the fermented feed for a while and I agree, it did help, but we stopped after she was diagnosed with an e.coli infection in her nasal passages (probably from her gross habit of poop eating).


I am also kinda concerned she may be developing angel wing...her feed is 17% protein, I thought it was only 15%. And her primaries are juuuust now starting to poke through so I don't quite know if it is angel wing or not, but I don't wanna take any chances with her. They stick straight up and she doesn't tuck her "hand" under her "elbow" like most ducks do.

...This diva duck is gonna be the end of me.

Do you have a picture of her "natural" wing carriage? My goose Trina seemed to have something funny going on with her wings, she held them like she was tired and couldn't pull them all the way up, but she grew into them just fine. I think maybe her wings just grew faster than she did at first ha.

 

[Amykins]

Yeah, here are a couple. It's hard to see cuz I don't have my normal camera and she's white, so it's hard to see her blood feathers sticking up. ><;; You can see it best in the bottom one, where her pinfeathers are visible above her back line.

 

[kukupecpec]

Darn I can't tell. You might try finding the thread that's all about her breed! Breed threads are usually full of helpful people who can look at her pictures and tell you what's most likely going on. They can usually give you solutions too =)

 

[Amykins]

I guess that's where I'll try next!

....RIGHT as I was typing this, she managed to spear a piece of her banana treat right onto her pin feather wingtips. She's eating it off like some really warped ice cream cone. How does she manage to do this?!

 

[AmandaVirus]

Yeah, here are a couple. It's hard to see cuz I don't have my normal camera and she's white, so it's hard to see her blood feathers sticking up. ><;; You can see it best in the bottom one, where her pinfeathers are visible above her back line.

From what I can tell, that looks pretty normal, if it were angel wing I think they would be sticking out away from her body, not up.

Quote: Huh, I guess I just don't have a very good sense of smell. I've heard grain feed (as apposed to pellets or crumbles) makes them poop less and not as smelly.

 

[Quackers Mama]

Speaking of stinky poop... lol. Anyone give there babies AVC in their water? I've tried it a couple of times & man I cannot get over the smell or watery mess lol. I've noticed that Quackers' stink when given AVC now smells like human urine & poop once in a while comes out white & foamy. Is that normal? It's never smelled like that before the AVC. I do about a third of a teaspoon to a quart of water. Even tried diluting it even more but it's still the same stink. Quackers is about 4-5 weeks old.

 

[Amykins]

Phew, what a morning! Just got back from the vet - Wobbles DID have angel wing! She got all wrapped up and she's doing well. Now it's just a battle of wills to keep her from picking at the bandage. Oi.

Also, the vet that treated her turned out to be the same lady I work with at the wildlife center, ha! I didn't even recognize her by her last name, we all go by a first-name basis at the volunteer shelter. What a funny, small world!

 

[AmandaVirus]

I made some booties/socks for my ducks, Misty started to get two bumbles on her left foot so I thought I'd make them to help pad it, then got to making some for my other ducks who have had bumbles for awhile (slowly healing). I thought you guys might like to see them.

This one was my first attempt. It could use some improvements, but I'd say it was a good first try!


And here is my second and third attempt with Poppy (one of my outside ducks) Modeling them



Now I just need to get some neoprene material to make them waterproof and better at keeping the foot clean if there is an open wound.