The Duck Thread

[Miss Lydia]

Hi Everyone, I was hoping someone can help me. I have 5, 3 month old marllards. And I want to put all purpose Miracle Grow on my garden. But they like to follow me out there an drink an play in the mud an water. I don't want to hurt them... Is it safe or not? I could put them up for the night, So it could soak in. I just don't know what to do..

I would not put any chemical fertilizer down where my poultry can come in contact with it. They will eat everything as you know. Keep them out of your garden .

Welcome to BYC @Jerica143

 

[Jerica143]

How long should I keep my ducks out of my garden?

 

[Ravynscroft]

Don't have any turtles in pond luckily..and thanks for the heads up. I'm wondering when and if I need to clip my fliers wings and exactly how. It's a learning experience and I don't want to hurt while helping our babies. Any advice would be useful.

TeamKelbo....

You may not need to, sounds like they knkw where home is... but if you need to I recommend getting a new pair of heavy duty, sharp shears... flight feathers have thick shafts and you want as clean of cuts as you can do... depending on which you prefer, these diagrams should help you...

Hi Everyone, I was hoping someone can help me. I have 5, 3 month old marllards. And I want to put all purpose Miracle Grow on my garden. But they like to follow me out there an drink an play in the mud an water. I don't want to hurt them... Is it safe or not? I could put them up for the night, So it could soak in. I just don't know what to do..

I would not put any chemical fertilizer down where my poultry can come in contact with it. They will eat everything as you know. Keep them out of your garden .

Welcome to BYC @Jerica143

X2

Fertilizers and pesticides cause the same harm to ducks and poultry... I recently had an issue with that due to an overzealous neighbor that put it down against our fence on our property... luckily she only got it in her eyes, but she could have lost her sight if I hadn't treated her immediately...

Mid treatment...

After...

 

[chickengirl72]

Any tips for helping ducks with anxiety?

We have bad neighbours who are always yelling and screaming and fighting and unfortunately the pond where our ducks live, on our property, borders on the bad neighbours. The neighbours had settled down for a couple of weeks in July and actually went away for a while. It was peaceful and beautiful while they were gone but unfortunately they're back now and back to fighting, yelling, screaming, etc. It's awful and after the peaceful interlude my ducks are traumatized by the end of the day listening to them. At night, instead of going home at bedtime, they're panicking, running around, quacking, and totally in fight/flight mode. I end up carrying them into their coop, one by one.

I have seen the police @ the bad neighbours place a couple of times this summer, and i don't really want to be calling them or bylaw over every little thing, because if something big happens, i want them to respond right away and not say, "oh it's just that lady who complains about all the little things all the time". And we also have to live beside them, and i don't want to deal with any kind of retaliation from them. They're just horrible and i don't want to antagonize them.

I was thinking about putting a white noise machine in the duck's enclosure to see if that helps muffle the sound of the constant battle sounds coming from next door.

When we lived in town, our dog had a lot of anxiety and i gave him passionflower tincture, which really helped. Can Ducks have passionflower?

Any other ideas?

Also, we only have an acre, which seemed really big when we bought it, but there's nowhere on the property where we can't hear the neighbours when they're yelling, so moving the ducks to another spot probably wouldn't help anyways. I was awake last night past 3 am worrying about all of this and trying to figure out what to do about it. i also have chickens who stop laying because of the noise, my rabbit had her last litter on the wire on the wrong day and i'm sure it was directly because of the neighbours, i don't let my kids outside when the fighting is going on so they've been inside wayy too much this summer, i try to plan my outside projects for early morning and late evening when it's quieter, etc etc, etc. it's had a huge, negative, impact on our quality of life. Not sure if there's really any good solution to any of this, other than moving away, but we can't afford that right now. I can see why the previous owners of our property sold.

 

[MandyJ]

...

Hey guys, so I've had my ducklings in the pen with my big ducks successfully for about a week and a half now. Everyone is doing well except my big ducks are still be a bit territorial over the kiddie pools even though we went out and bought more. How long usually before they think of the ducklings as part of their group?[/quote




I left mine together with a divider (they could see each other but not touch) between them for about 2 weeks. They were together at night only as my adults were free ranging during the day. After 2 weeks I let everyone free range together during the day but still separated at night. After 3 weeks I let everyone stay together all the time. I have 2 adults and 5 about 5 months old (all hens). Surprisingly I only saw aggression from the babies toward the adults. The 5 little ones overwhelmed the adults with their number. Hence we call the babies (not babies now!) the mob! Lol
Good luck. This is a scary time. You are afraid someone will get hurt. But be patient. Mine are now always together.
Mandy

 

[Ren2014]

Dewys butterfly.

Beautiful!

Awwwh sweet.

 

[jenniferlamar70]

...

Hey guys, so I've had my ducklings in the pen with my big ducks successfully for about a week and a half now. Everyone is doing well except my big ducks are still be a bit territorial over the kiddie pools even though we went out and bought more. How long usually before they think of the ducklings as part of their group?[/quote




I left mine together with a divider (they could see each other but not touch) between them for about 2 weeks. They were together at night only as my adults were free ranging during the day. After 2 weeks I let everyone free range together during the day but still separated at night. After 3 weeks I let everyone stay together all the time. I have 2 adults and 5 about 5 months old (all hens). Surprisingly I only saw aggression from the babies toward the adults. The 5 little ones overwhelmed the adults with their number. Hence we call the babies (not babies now!) the mob! Lol
Good luck. This is a scary time. You are afraid someone will get hurt. But be patient. Mine are now always together.
Mandy

I'm actually not worried about the little ones getting hurt. We had them out there for a week with a divider up and now they have already been out there for about a week and a half without it. At night the sleep in the same house but the little ones are in a crate for safety. When in the pen they all get along fine. The only time the big ducks act up at all is when the little ducks want to swim in the pool. I figured once they excepted them and shared food/watering dishes willingly that the pool would be close to the same. We don't free range. Neighbor dogs keep getting in our yard..

 

[Ren2014]

Okay. I own snakes as pets!

I have 12 snakes.

TWELVE? I hope they are small

What kind of snakes?

We had a snake kill 2 of our ducks when they were around 8-10weeks old. Too big to swallow for the snake but still killed them. We did had a small king snake around the pen a few weeks ago but we chased him away and put out sulfer to be sure he stayed away. Don't underestimate snakes even if you like them

Just make sure you take preventative measures to keep your babies safe.

I had one get a broody Muscovy

It ate her eggs and just left her.

Quote:

Any tips for helping ducks with anxiety?

We have bad neighbours who are always yelling and screaming and fighting and unfortunately the pond where our ducks live, on our property, borders on the bad neighbours. The neighbours had settled down for a couple of weeks in July and actually went away for a while. It was peaceful and beautiful while they were gone but unfortunately they're back now and back to fighting, yelling, screaming, etc. It's awful and after the peaceful interlude my ducks are traumatized by the end of the day listening to them. At night, instead of going home at bedtime, they're panicking, running around, quacking, and totally in fight/flight mode. I end up carrying them into their coop, one by one.

I have seen the police @ the bad neighbours place a couple of times this summer, and i don't really want to be calling them or bylaw over every little thing, because if something big happens, i want them to respond right away and not say, "oh it's just that lady who complains about all the little things all the time". And we also have to live beside them, and i don't want to deal with any kind of retaliation from them. They're just horrible and i don't want to antagonize them.

I was thinking about putting a white noise machine in the duck's enclosure to see if that helps muffle the sound of the constant battle sounds coming from next door.

When we lived in town, our dog had a lot of anxiety and i gave him passionflower tincture, which really helped. Can Ducks have passionflower?

Any other ideas?

Also, we only have an acre, which seemed really big when we bought it, but there's nowhere on the property where we can't hear the neighbours when they're yelling, so moving the ducks to another spot probably wouldn't help anyways. I was awake last night past 3 am worrying about all of this and trying to figure out what to do about it. i also have chickens who stop laying because of the noise, my rabbit had her last litter on the wire on the wrong day and i'm sure it was directly because of the neighbours, i don't let my kids outside when the fighting is going on so they've been inside wayy too much this summer, i try to plan my outside projects for early morning and late evening when it's quieter, etc etc, etc. it's had a huge, negative, impact on our quality of life. Not sure if there's really any good solution to any of this, other than moving away, but we can't afford that right now. I can see why the previous owners of our property sold.

O my, I don't know what to say. Can you ask the neighbors very nicely to keep it down for your children and your duck's sake?? Good luck.

 

[EmilyP]

our big guy has still been limping and just not even using his leg so this evening we soaked him again and took basically his whole foot callus(?) off. Not really any bleeding and no infectious type material but it was very thick. Here's a before and after picture.

We didn't have time to block off the pool before it got dark so hopefully he will stay out of the pool tonight. We have been having to put him in it the past two days so I think we might be safe. He was such a good boy during the 45 min "surgery" and 30 min soak.

 

[MandyJ]

our big guy has still been limping and just not even using his leg so this evening we soaked him again and took basically his whole foot callus(?) off. Not really any bleeding and no infectious type material but it was very thick. Here's a before and after picture.


We didn't have time to block off the pool before it got dark so hopefully he will stay out of the pool tonight. We have been having to put him in it the past two days so I think we might be safe. He was such a good boy during the 45 min "surgery" and 30 min soak.

It looks better. Hopefully this will work.
Mandy