DanielleInUro
Songster
Hi, I'm Danielle. (Or as I introduce myself at work, "Danielle in Urology.") I'm in Dallas, I work at a hospital here, and about seven-ish months ago, we bought a house with a big backyard and started raising ducks. Then about two-ish months ago, I started raising coturnix quail too. The ducks are yard-angels, the coturnix are for meat and eggs, and I've been reading the living heck out of the "Ducks" and "Quail" sections of the forums before, during, and after I started keeping both.
I have four ducks--usually keep five, but we lost our panicky, silly, funny little Jenny last week. My drakes--Bork is a cayuga, Willie is a buff orphington. My ducks are Pica, who we think is a fawn-and-white-runner-pekin-mix, and Trish, who is a beautiful rouen. The quail are all "the quail," and they are Texas A&M, James Marie line.
I also have a parrot, Marco, who pre-dates the whole poultry thing and has zero interest in any of them.
I've successfully hatched a clutch of coturnix that are due for harvest in about two weeks, and have another one on the way next weekend. (My first time raising meat-animals at all, and I LOVE it.) Then I'm planning to hatch a clutch of Welsh Harlequins and keep two girls, since three is ALMOST enough for my rapey little drakes.
I have also failed at keeping two ducks safe from predators, one coturnix from bonking himself to death, and helped one baby quail hatch who should not have hatched, and I had to cull him because the poor little guy was in a bad way.
My ducks are housed at night in a ten by ten chain link dog kennel with a 150 gallon stock tank that they sleep in. I have a hose on a timer running into it that fills for 10 minutes, twice a day. As the water level rises, it overflows out of ten smaller hoses into two raised bed. We're harvesting a ton of tomatoes, cucumbers,and herbs with no work at all. Once a week, I pull the plug at the bottom and let the water flow down to a grape vine and some other plants.
So..that's most of what's worth knowing about me. Hi, all.
I have four ducks--usually keep five, but we lost our panicky, silly, funny little Jenny last week. My drakes--Bork is a cayuga, Willie is a buff orphington. My ducks are Pica, who we think is a fawn-and-white-runner-pekin-mix, and Trish, who is a beautiful rouen. The quail are all "the quail," and they are Texas A&M, James Marie line.
I also have a parrot, Marco, who pre-dates the whole poultry thing and has zero interest in any of them.
I've successfully hatched a clutch of coturnix that are due for harvest in about two weeks, and have another one on the way next weekend. (My first time raising meat-animals at all, and I LOVE it.) Then I'm planning to hatch a clutch of Welsh Harlequins and keep two girls, since three is ALMOST enough for my rapey little drakes.
I have also failed at keeping two ducks safe from predators, one coturnix from bonking himself to death, and helped one baby quail hatch who should not have hatched, and I had to cull him because the poor little guy was in a bad way.
My ducks are housed at night in a ten by ten chain link dog kennel with a 150 gallon stock tank that they sleep in. I have a hose on a timer running into it that fills for 10 minutes, twice a day. As the water level rises, it overflows out of ten smaller hoses into two raised bed. We're harvesting a ton of tomatoes, cucumbers,and herbs with no work at all. Once a week, I pull the plug at the bottom and let the water flow down to a grape vine and some other plants.
So..that's most of what's worth knowing about me. Hi, all.
