Show off your house ducks!

[kukupecpec]

When am I gonna learn not to snack in bed? It doesn't matter where I hide the crackers...Wobbles will FIND the crackers...

x2! ChaCha is a cracker homing device! I had a stash buried on a shelf from when I was quite sick and the minute my pillow tower was moved out of the way, ChaCha was all up in those crackers!

-sigh- Do any of you guys get flak for having house ducks? Several times now, total strangers have either scoffed or outright antagonized me for spending so much money saving Bean. They think that a little duckling's life isn't worth it and that she's "food, not family".

It really bugs me how rude and mean-spirited some people can be. ._.

Yes. I was mocked pretty badly at a feedstore (not the one I got my geese) when I told them my intent was to have indoor pet geese. I was there a month before I got my goslings asking lots of questions about the right kind of feed. The woman helping me said flat out what I was doing would not work. The other two people there has a good laugh. BTW, they sold me turkey feed at 28% protein saying it would be fine for goslings. I ended up not giving that feed to Jupiter, ordering Mazuri waterfowl starter instead. My adult son scorned me when I told him my plan. He doesn't even know that I've had (the one we have left) for almost four weeks. My mother in law doesn't know either. She is not a nice woman. Finding out we have a pet goose is further ammunition in trying to convince my husband I'm too eccentric. It's like we are hiding a dirty dark filthy secret.

I've also read plenty of unkind posts on this board that are very much anti-indoor pet waterfowl. One even went as far as to claim he/she took it upon themselves to report indoor pet waterfowl owners to the state board of health for having livestock in the house. How that is anyone's business is beyond me. A society (online or otherwise) does not flourish from stagnant thinking. The world would be a pretty boring place if we all think alike. At one time people may have criticized the notion of making the wolf an indoor pet, but now the dog is seen as man's best friend.

And for the record, my goose is the best companion pet I've ever had. Ever.

I'm always sorry to hear when people get tongue lashed for having house ducks. I've lucked out so far and only get the "crazy" looks, but no outright judgement. I get lots of questions like "is that sanitary? Aren't you worried about salmonella?" but thankfully those are pretty easy to retort.
I did get some judegement back when I had a house rooster. I learned pretty quick to just let it roll off me. I get REALLY steamed about stuff, my angry impulse control is pretty bad, so learning to ignore people's uninformed opinions really went a long way for me. I try to equate it to other common pet issues like "pitbulls are mean" - it's all just misinformation, and if I can't relax and inform them in a quiet, calm, understanding tone, it's best to just move on and let it be someone else's problem =P
Hopefully you guys don't have to deal with anymore whiney judgers!

I'm used to chaos - granted, I wasn't expecting the skunk, especially after the fence work, but Narcissus did his job and protected the flock. Even the random quail rooster loose with the big birds came out unscathed, and it was fortunately dark out, so the neighbors were not subjected to some crazy middle aged woman running around in her underwear with an air rifle.
Plus, incubator 3 is DONE! Finally!! My current incubating capacity for ducks (until I change incubator 1 over to a dedicated hatcher) is 135, although I can go up to 150. If that doesn't motivate me to complete another couple grow out pens, another shed and some protected outdoor runs for the little ones, I don't know what will!! Waterfowlsplosion is close at hand!!
The chaos is manageable, although once my daughter leaves for her clinical rotation at NYU and I lose my extra help I'll have to get more creative! I'll put Missy to work then!!

Holy crow lady! You are a waterfowl paradise ruler! When all these projects are done, we must have pictures!!!!
Esp the soon to come Waterfowlsplosion!!!!

 

[LadyHawkeAvry]

x2! ChaCha is a cracker homing device! I had a stash buried on a shelf from when I was quite sick and the minute my pillow tower was moved out of the way, ChaCha was all up in those crackers!

I'm always sorry to hear when people get tongue lashed for having house ducks. I've lucked out so far and only get the "crazy" looks, but no outright judgement. I get lots of questions like "is that sanitary? Aren't you worried about salmonella?" but thankfully those are pretty easy to retort.
I did get some judegement back when I had a house rooster. I learned pretty quick to just let it roll off me. I get REALLY steamed about stuff, my angry impulse control is pretty bad, so learning to ignore people's uninformed opinions really went a long way for me. I try to equate it to other common pet issues like "pitbulls are mean" - it's all just misinformation, and if I can't relax and inform them in a quiet, calm, understanding tone, it's best to just move on and let it be someone else's problem =P
Hopefully you guys don't have to deal with anymore whiney judgers!


Holy crow lady! You are a waterfowl paradise ruler! When all these projects are done, we must have pictures!!!!
Esp the soon to come Waterfowlsplosion!!!!

I don't know what it is with ducks and crackers! Missy was trying to eat the picture on a bag of them the other day! Then she realized she could get in the side.....

and X2 on the people who just assume you are an awful person who is up to their eyeballs in waterfowl poop for keeping them in the house!! Apparently they have not heard of diapers, and the concept of a mop, bleach, and a scrub brush is totally foreign to them... It's like they expect us to be like, "nah, it's cool, we enjoy living in bird poop, why bother cleaning!" It makes me so angry. Every once in a while one of my friends does it to me, and I shut him down right quick. I haven't pulled out the big guns and reminded him that his father is a hoarder who filled much of his family home with random stuff he picked up from decades of working at the Freshkills landfill before it was closed... I can see the floors in all the rooms of my home... Honestly, my husband makes a way bigger mess than any of my waterfowl can ever hope to, and my demented mother carries a higher infectious risk because she has a habit of sticking her finger into any food she finds interesting looking... I just ignore them all, take my babies out with me to the feed store, and let Missy go for drives whenever she wants (most of the time she prefers to stay in, and then gets angry that you leave (even though she is never alone in the house). My hubby was on the hot seat yesterday for working. Eventually she forgave him and slid up next to him and nibbled his shirt while watching him play video games..

I was hoping to get some more scovies for waterfowlsplosion, but they went broody and I lost out on my egg source. I will be getting some lavender/BBS orpingtons tomorrow to throw in incubator 3 to provide myself a little bit of a faster test hatch, I won't have room for Penny's eggs until next week in the proven incubators. I am expecting some 60+ new babies in the next month, mainly ducks, but my daughter sells those as fast as I can hatch them!

It looks like my khakis in the Garage of Shame will be finding a new home. I will collect eggs from them for a little longer to give away for hatching, and then they will become someone else's layers. I will have TONS of their offspring to be my layers next year, and they will be better mannered than their parents. My imprinted birds don't feel the need to roam off of the property.... Even Penny the pheasant, who flew off into the woods for a week, decided she had a much better life with me, and reappeared at the aviary wanting to be let back in. I opened up the door for her, and her mate Prince showed absolutely no interest in getting out.... She promptly headed back in, and also has shown no desire to leave. I have a little quail rooster, also a very strong flier, hanging out with the ducks and geese in the yard. Even Aramis and Lousette, who were completely wild when I got them, have no interest in heading back to the pond down the road, They have realized that a steady source of food, shelter, protection and clean bathing water is much better than 5 acres of shallow pond that they have to share with hundreds of wild geese, and where there is no food after the snow flies. They still won't let me pet them, but we are working on that...

Time to feed the quaking masses.... Missy is already up and has moved to her favorite spot in the hall, and my Pekin is due for another warm soak...

 

[Skyfire]

I'm so jazzed right now actually talking to BYC members whose posts I've read for months. You ladies (and gents lest I be presumptuous) inspired me to travel this path. What a journey it's been so far. I wish you all lived closer. It would be so nice to meet each other with our feathered friends for a pot of tea.


As for people who think it's their job to tell me all the ill informed reasons I'm a weirdo for having a pet goose, well.....haters gonna hate

Edited to add: the sod came from a landscape store about two town from us. They cost $3 a piece for 4x2 rectangles. At first, one piece was enough for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now, it's pretty much one meal, lol. Amazing how much they eat!

 

[SilkieSensation]

-sigh- Do any of you guys get flak for having house ducks? Several times now, total strangers have either scoffed or outright antagonized me for spending so much money saving Bean. They think that a little duckling's life isn't worth it and that she's "food, not family". 

It really bugs me how rude and mean-spirited some people can be. ._.

Your choices in the care of your pets are entirely your own. I personally can not afford to take my animals to a vet, so anything I can't doctor myself gets put down. I've doctored injuries as severe as wing amputations successfully, so I do pretty well on my own. I do call the vet my family has used for years if I have questions, but typically I can figure it out on my own. Your ability to spend money on your pets tends to play a large role in whether or not you do spend the money. I just don't have it to spend. Those that do, the choice us entirely their own. My opinion is irrelevent.

 

[kukupecpec]

I don't know what it is with ducks and crackers!  Missy was trying to eat the picture on a bag of them the other day!  Then she realized she could get in the side.....

and X2 on the people who just assume you are an awful person who is up to their eyeballs in waterfowl poop for keeping them in the house!!  Apparently they have not heard of diapers, and the concept of a mop, bleach, and a scrub brush is totally foreign to them... It's like they expect us to be like, "nah, it's cool, we enjoy living in bird poop, why bother cleaning!"  It makes me so angry.  Every once in a while one of my friends does it to me, and I shut him down right quick.  I haven't pulled out the big guns and reminded him that his father is a hoarder who filled  much of his family home with random stuff he picked up from decades of working at the Freshkills landfill before it was closed... I can see the floors in all the rooms of my home...  Honestly, my husband makes a way bigger mess than any of my waterfowl can ever hope to, and my demented mother carries a higher infectious risk because she has a habit of sticking her finger into any food she finds interesting looking...  I just ignore them all, take my babies out with me to the feed store, and let Missy go for drives whenever she wants (most of the time she prefers to stay in, and then gets angry that you leave (even though she is never alone in the house).  My hubby was on the hot seat yesterday for working.  Eventually she forgave him and slid up next to him and nibbled his shirt while watching him play video games..

I was hoping to get some more scovies for waterfowlsplosion, but they went broody and I lost out on my egg source.  I will be getting some lavender/BBS orpingtons tomorrow to throw in incubator 3 to provide myself a little bit of a faster test hatch, I won't have room for Penny's eggs until next week in the proven incubators.  I am expecting some 60+ new babies in the next month, mainly ducks, but my daughter sells those as fast as I can hatch them!  

It looks like my khakis in the Garage of Shame will be finding a new home.  I will collect eggs from them for a little longer to give away for hatching, and then they will become someone else's layers.  I will have TONS of their offspring to be my layers next year, and they will be better mannered than their parents.  My imprinted birds don't feel the need to roam off of the property....  Even Penny the pheasant, who flew off into the woods for a week, decided she had a much better life with me, and reappeared at the aviary wanting to be let back in.  I opened up the door for her, and her mate Prince showed absolutely no interest in getting out....   She promptly headed back in, and also has shown no desire to leave.  I have a little quail rooster, also a very strong flier, hanging out with the ducks and geese in the yard.  Even Aramis and Lousette, who were completely wild when I got them, have no interest in heading back to the pond down the road,  They have realized that a steady source of food, shelter, protection and clean bathing water is much better than 5 acres of shallow pond that they have to share with hundreds of wild geese, and where there is no food after the snow flies.  They still won't let me pet them, but we are working on that...

Time to feed the quaking masses.... Missy is already up and has moved to her favorite spot in the hall, and my Pekin is due for another warm soak...

Up to your eyeballs in poop! Now that image will stay with me forever =P I ordered business cards for Sew Sammi to hand out when I'm it and about, I'm 24, so I'm just at the age that I'm running into purple around town who knew me "when you were just this high" and of course they always ask me what I do - name house and duck diapers =D When I was designing it, I realised I get just as many questions about ChaCha and "how that works" so I put ChaCha on the back of my business card! I'm hoping that having something a little professional looking will help convince people that house duckers aren't gross (because we all admit to being completely bonkers =P)

I love that your birdies come back! My chickens go missing every once in a while. In the off chance we get rain abd something turns green around here, I like to let the chickens run free in the yard to catch the bus and eat the greens. Most recently I had a pretty little blue hen not come back to the coop at night, but every morning at feeding time she was back for breakfast! I think she must have been setting on eggs somewhere in the neighborhood. After a month she stopped coming back =( thankfully my rooster is pretty good at keeping his ladies in line, and only the serama can fly well enough to get over our fence.

I'm so jazzed right now actually talking to BYC members whose posts I've read for months.  You ladies (and gents lest I be presumptuous) inspired me to travel this path.  What a journey it's been so far.  I wish you all lived closer.  It would be so nice to meet each other with our feathered friends for a pot of tea.


As for people who think it's their job to tell me all the ill informed reasons I'm a weirdo for having a pet goose, well.....haters gonna hate  

Well we are glad to have you!!! We can never have too many house ducj/goose/chicken members =D

Your choices in the care of your pets are entirely your own. I personally can not afford to take my animals to a vet, so anything I can't doctor myself gets put down. I've doctored injuries as severe as wing amputations successfully, so I do pretty well on my own. I do call the vet my family has used for years if I have questions, but typically I can figure it out on my own. Your ability to spend money on your pets tends to play a large role in whether or not you do spend the money. I just don't have it to spend. Those that do, the choice us entirely their own. My opinion is irrelevent.

It certainly pays to have those skills! We only have one avian vet and my goose Trina was her only fowl patient. Our farm vet doesn't take fowl so they are out of the question. It's so nice to hear everyone on here trying so hard for their pets! We each have our own financial limits, but I don't think there's a single person on this thread who doesn't do every single thing they are able for their birds =) It's good to have BYC member resources who can share their home remedies with us all, each and every one of us have benefited from that kind of help.

 

[Amykins]

I don't know what it is with ducks and crackers! Missy was trying to eat the picture on a bag of them the other day! Then she realized she could get in the side.....

x2! ChaCha is a cracker homing device! I had a stash buried on a shelf from when I was quite sick and the minute my pillow tower was moved out of the way, ChaCha was all up in those crackers!

I often joke that ducks would make excellent search-and-rescue animals if skiers and hikers kept crackers or cheerios in their pockets! Think about it, we could be onto something big here...

It certainly pays to have those skills! We only have one avian vet and my goose Trina was her only fowl patient. Our farm vet doesn't take fowl so they are out of the question. It's so nice to hear everyone on here trying so hard for their pets! We each have our own financial limits, but I don't think there's a single person on this thread who doesn't do every single thing they are able for their birds =) It's good to have BYC member resources who can share their home remedies with us all, each and every one of us have benefited from that kind of help.

I'm INSANELY lucky to live where I live. There's a vet clinic 20 minutes away that specializes in birds, and one of the vets has been treating chickens, ducks and geese for nearly 20 years. It's awesome. I hope I can intern there someday!

 

[LadyHawkeAvry]

This morning Pale Girl the Pekin was up on both legs, and of course, complaining about being confined. Little Boy was calling to her from the side of the house, so they have been carrying on a conversation through the wall all morning. Her leg is about half the size it was yesterday. So today she will get another soak, some more PCN and dexamethsone. I am sure she will be angry at me for keeping her in, but I don't want her to re injure herself by having me chase her around for meds, and my dominant drakes are HUGE, and she is the most popular hen in the yard - everyone finds her irresistible... Plus, the skunk was back plundering nests. Little Girl the Pekin dug herself a nice nest bowl and has 2 eggs so far, so I'm going to have to stay up and wait for the skunk tonight. He is fast, so I may have to warn the neighbors and the local PD and pull out something with a bit more power. If I have to pull out the MP5, he will be making his last trip into the yard. There will be gals on eggs all summer, and young birds with their mothers, and I can't have predators about for that.... Penny was unnerved enough to abandon her first nest and start a second nest. I pulled and set 14 eggs from her today. Hopefully she will set the new batch herself. Pheasants need a ton of room to house and brood, and the aviary is designed to house a lot more pheasants than just two. I would prefer she raised her own children so I can make use of the existing enclosure.

Little boy just came to the back door - like most of my breeders, he was hand raised in the house, so he knows his lady friend is in here somewhere... I have the door open to let the breeze through and the young cats out to learn the territory out back under supervision of my oldest queen. She keeps an excellent eye on the birds, and actually herds any errant ones back onto the property. The twins got out following the khakis last week, and before my husband could get down the road to them, she had rounded them up and brought them back. I'm hoping the little ones learn from her. They grew up with most of the birds I hatched last year, and all of this year's crop, so they already view the birds as family. Our other older queen is less hands on, but she will sit out in the field and supervise the young birds as they forage. The kittens are about 7 months old now, and are ready to learn life skills from the working queens...

Despite the door being wide open, and me outside doing yard work and prepping for new outbuildings, Missy was not interested in joining me. She watched me work from the comfort of the kitchen... She is 100% house duck!

 

[Amykins]

Poor Bean...she doesn't yet understand that feet = people, so when I let her run around the floor she shrieks her head off unless I lean way down so she can see my head! Even dum-dum Wobbles figured that one out within a couple days. :/

 

[LadyHawkeAvry]

Poor Bean...she doesn't yet understand that feet = people, so when I let her run around the floor she shrieks her head off unless I lean way down so she can see my head! Even dum-dum Wobbles figured that one out within a couple days. :/

That is so wonderfully cute! She's going to be Wobbles' trophy wife - younger than him, really cute, but not much going on upstairs...

 

[Amykins]

That is so wonderfully cute! She's going to be Wobbles' trophy wife - younger than him, really cute, but not much going on upstairs...

LOL! Omg, I never thought about it like that before! That's TOTALLY what she is!! She's gonna be super pretty, too. She's losing fuzz left and right and I can see the new feathers poking through, they're a beautiful shade of cobalt blue-grey! Squeee! <3