Show off your house ducks!

[kukupecpec]

Oooh where did you find these leashes? I'm trying to find a duck harness and all I can find are the diaper ones. 
Never actually used one before so I can't really answer your questions but I have heard of people who have used them.

We make harnesses and leashes that are JUST harnesses without the diaper part. Specifically for ducks and geese =) you can find them on our website at www.SewSammi.com/shop

 

[kukupecpec]

Aww! ChaCha's so cute! And it's so cool that you have a waterfowl specialist near you... There should be more of those. A lot more ​

I have a question. I was on here a while back, before I had an account on BYC even, and stumbled on an interesting article (I think it was an article...).  It was about a domestic crested pekin who was found in a park. She was taken door to door by the people who found her, and eventually, they found someone with a duck pen in their backyard, and gave the crested pekin to that person.
Is that ChaCha? She and your username looks familiar, but I may be wrong...

Haha yes that is us!!! Her story was on our old website too. We've moved it to our new one. Poor thing, she could never be fat enough for a dinner bird.

We are SO lucky ti have this vet. She sees cats and dogs and reptiles, but she actually SPECIALIZES in poultry and waterfowl. Our old vet was just an avian specialist, they didn't actually know anything about waterfowl, but were happy to help when we had an emergency. This is just the next step up. She's wonderful and I'll be passing her along to all my friends! And she's only 13 minutes from my house! ChaCha is one seriously lucky duck (though I may need to sell a few more diapers per day to make up for these vet visits, yeesh)

 

[Julie Birb]

EEEEEEEEE HOOPOOSE I LOVE CHA CHA. AAAAAUUUUGH!!!!!!!!!

 

[QuackSpeak]

Haha yes that is us!!! Her story was on our old website too. We've moved it to our new one. Poor thing, she could never be fat enough for a dinner bird.

We are SO lucky ti have this vet. She sees cats and dogs and reptiles, but she actually SPECIALIZES in poultry and waterfowl. Our old vet was just an avian specialist, they didn't actually know anything about waterfowl, but were happy to help when we had an emergency. This is just the next step up. She's wonderful and I'll be passing her along to all my friends! And she's only 13 minutes from my house! ChaCha is one seriously lucky duck (though I may need to sell a few more diapers per day to make up for these vet visits, yeesh)

Lucky! I've never encountered an emergency with my ducks, where one of them was injured, but it would've been nice to have that option! And yeah, one of the reasons we hesitated (And still do) to get a dog was because of the vet bills. My dad loves dogs, but we're not home as often as a dog would demand. I can't complain though, because not getting a dog is why my parents let me convince them to get ducks!

 

[kukupecpec]

Lucky! I've never encountered an emergency with my ducks, where one of them was injured, but it would've been nice to have that option! And yeah, one of the reasons we hesitated (And still do) to get a dog was because of the vet bills. My dad loves dogs, but we're not home as often as a dog would demand. I can't complain though, because not getting a dog is why my parents let me convince them to get ducks!

Thank heavens not to have had an emergency! I'm hoping we won't have anything soon. But I'll be happy to have baselines established should anything ever happen in the future. And have someone to ask when I have questions!

 

[QuackSpeak]

Thank heavens not to have had an emergency! I'm hoping we won't have anything soon. But I'll be happy to have baselines established should anything ever happen in the future. And have someone to ask when I have questions!

True! You know what I'm thinking? Have you head of the Emergency Thread? A bunch of people are subscribed to it, (Me too, even though I'm pretty much useless in that department, and have yet to post), and people post Emergencies on there, so that they will get a response quicker. There should be one of those for actual vets! I mean, it'd probably be harder to set up, and maybe won't even work, but.... Food for Thought...

 

[kukupecpec]

True! You know what I'm thinking? Have you head of the Emergency Thread? A bunch of people are subscribed to it, (Me too, even though I'm pretty much useless in that department, and have yet to post), and people post Emergencies on there, so that they will get a response quicker. There should be one of those for actual vets! I mean, it'd probably be harder to set up, and maybe won't even work, but.... Food for Thought...

That would probably be a great idea! But are there vets that would subscribe and chime in when people post w/questions? I guess someone would have to be in charge of moderating, and that would be the difficult part. Making sure the vet was legit, and keeping the "know it alls" off. Of course, most vets I know want blood work. But who knows! it could work, and it could probably help a lot of people! But actual vets could get in trouble for that sort of casual advice if something went wrong. It's a shame people can be so slimy =(

On a happy note, ChaCha's everything came back from our vet! She's all in EXCELLENT shape! Everything is functioning fantastically, a couple numbers were slightly low/high, but those were all things they account to physically being in the office and the stress of being man-handled and poked to be tested. That's gotta be fun for animals, right? No parasites, her feet are currently looking good (poor girl had seriously intense bumble foot when she came to us. took a long time to heal but she's been pretty healthy ever since). My biggest concern, which really only concerns me if it concerns the vet, is that ChaCha hasn't laid an egg in a very long time. Vet checked her out good, and nothing seems to be wrong. All other signs are healthy healthy healthy, so our vet is pretty sure ChaCha's egglessness is either environmental - she has zero reason to lay eggs because her nutrition is just fine after a pretty in depth discussion - or caused by trauma from before we got her considering the injuries she had when he first came to us, or possibly a combination of both. She did lay eggs for a while with us, and has laid eggs sporadically. Usually at ridiculous times of day and for odd stretches of time. Regardless, she doesn't need to lay eggs (for our family, for her body, or for her own "family"), and her not laying eggs isn't hurting her body. In fact our vet thinks it's probably a healthier option for her because of her trauma. Apparently a lot of older ducks come in with reproductive problems from over-laying. Who knew? I suppose they are "designed" by humans to grow up as fast a possible, lay as many eggs as quickly as possible, and then we'll eat them when they get too old to produce. I mean in the grand scheme of food production if you're a homesteader providing for your family and you are the one "designing" these animals in the first place that makes complete sense! (let's not get into the reality of commercial production cause that's not what this is) It just doesn't for ChaCha the pet house duck lol. She confirmed that she's quite young so if she keeps on this healthy active path she could live a good long life! Now if we could just get her to SWIM regularly.... vet wants to see her take to water on her own to prevent arthritis as she ages... ChaCha does not like to swim... pond PTSD we think. Oy girl! We will work on that. Poor crazy ducky...

 

[Tevyes Dad]

That would probably be a great idea! But are there vets that would subscribe and chime in when people post w/questions? I guess someone would have to be in charge of moderating, and that would be the difficult part. Making sure the vet was legit, and keeping the "know it alls" off. Of course, most vets I know want blood work. But who knows! it could work, and it could probably help a lot of people! But actual vets could get in trouble for that sort of casual advice if something went wrong. It's a shame people can be so slimy =(

On a happy note, ChaCha's everything came back from our vet! She's all in EXCELLENT shape! Everything is functioning fantastically, a couple numbers were slightly low/high, but those were all things they account to physically being in the office and the stress of being man-handled and poked to be tested. That's gotta be fun for animals, right? No parasites, her feet are currently looking good (poor girl had seriously intense bumble foot when she came to us. took a long time to heal but she's been pretty healthy ever since). My biggest concern, which really only concerns me if it concerns the vet, is that ChaCha hasn't laid an egg in a very long time. Vet checked her out good, and nothing seems to be wrong. All other signs are healthy healthy healthy, so our vet is pretty sure ChaCha's egglessness is either environmental - she has zero reason to lay eggs because her nutrition is just fine after a pretty in depth discussion - or caused by trauma from before we got her considering the injuries she had when he first came to us, or possibly a combination of both. She did lay eggs for a while with us, and has laid eggs sporadically. Usually at ridiculous times of day and for odd stretches of time. Regardless, she doesn't need to lay eggs (for our family, for her body, or for her own "family"), and her not laying eggs isn't hurting her body. In fact our vet thinks it's probably a healthier option for her because of her trauma. Apparently a lot of older ducks come in with reproductive problems from over-laying. Who knew? I suppose they are "designed" by humans to grow up as fast a possible, lay as many eggs as quickly as possible, and then we'll eat them when they get too old to produce. I mean in the grand scheme of food production if you're a homesteader providing for your family and you are the one "designing" these animals in the first place that makes complete sense! (let's not get into the reality of commercial production cause that's not what this is) It just doesn't for ChaCha the pet house duck lol. She confirmed that she's quite young so if she keeps on this healthy active path she could live a good long life! Now if we could just get her to SWIM regularly.... vet wants to see her take to water on her own to prevent arthritis as she ages... ChaCha does not like to swim... pond PTSD we think. Oy girl! We will work on that. Poor crazy ducky...

Just out of curiosity how cold is the water you give her to bathe in and what does she do if you put her in water that just covers her legs. I ask because my wife was giving the ducks warmer baths and they seem to like them more if they are around 50F (adult ducks - we always bathed our ducklings around 100F) so now we both pour tubs that are colder than we would like, but the ducks love it. Also Noir was "water shy" the summer before last. When we put her in the tub, she would bathe happily and do all the duck motions until the water got deep enough that she had to swim, then she would just sit there like she was scared. When we put her in the swimming pool outside (the big one), she would swim directly toward the ramp and get out. Her feathers were horrible through this time. We thought it could have been some kind of trauma that we missed and maybe it was, but last summer she was in the big pool with the rest of the ducks like she never had a problem. I don't know what the issue was, but my point was while she was having the issue, she loved to bathe in water that just barely touched her belly.

Oh yeah... ChaCha

 

[Skink]

Popping in with a little update on Olive in case anyone else goes through what we did: the two implants worked! She has stopped laying eggs completely and acts like a prepubescent duck now. No more squatting + tooting, no more digging nests, and she has fallen completely back in to the behavior she had before she started to lay. Which is a nice bonus because she was a very cuddly duckling and that side of her is back now!

 

[QuackSpeak]

Popping in with a little update on Olive in case anyone else goes through what we did: the two implants worked! She has stopped laying eggs completely and acts like a prepubescent duck now. No more squatting + tooting, no more digging nests, and she has fallen completely back in to the behavior she had before she started to lay. Which is a nice bonus because she was a very cuddly duckling and that side of her is back now!

That's really cool! I didn't even know you could do that!