The Duck Thread

[needlessjunk]

That sounds yummy needlessjunk recipe? 

This is from 100 days of Real Food Cookbook

 

[Miss Lydia]

This is from 100 days of Real Food Cookbook

Gosh that sounds so good especially on a cold day. Thank you.

 

[season1223]

I can't sell them either, I can't even give them away. I've tried to give them to ppl to try and they dont wanna!

I live in the country also farm community so theres alot of people who grew up eating all kinds of eggs...those r the people u want to talk to...try to reach older people who grew up in the country (on a farm...even better)! Those r the people who prefer duck eggs!

 

[Lynn Manes]

@lynnhill I commend your intentions to keep them. I would hate to see you miss out on what fun crazy characters ducks can be. Most of us find them worth the trouble and mess.

I had a pair very briefly in the 70s. They made such a mess. After that I swore I would never have ducks again.

Well here I am with not 2 but 8 of them. Nothing has changed. I live in the same house. They are in the same yard. What did change is my attitude. They are every bit as cruddy as they always were but I have a brick area I can hose off. The duck water runs into the garden as fertilizer and life is easier.

They will tame down eventually but you should start with a couple ducklings if you want friendly. They will show the wild ones you are safe.

How long have you had them? My first time lasted less than a week.

We bought 3 adults, a drake & 2 females, this Spring from an old man that has a feed store here. They certainly were not tame. They had to catch them with a big fishing net. But being inexperienced, I really didn't think about that. So they never really took to people except one of my females, Neurotica would talk up a storm to me, and when she went broody along with the other female at the same time, I had no clue who's eggs were whose bc they laid them in the same nest and shared sitting time on them. Together they laid 27 eggs; only 4 hatched and one died leaving us with 3 babies which only Neurotica took care of. So we knew then who Mom was at least.However no way would she let us near her babies. (I named her that for a reason. She's truly neurotic. Lol) I was only able to grab up one of the soft fuzzy babies once to pet and cuddle it and she threw a fit the whole time. I didn't want to stress her out more so never attempted it again, & soon those cuddly ducklings got big. I had no clue they grow so fast. But like the parents they have nothing to do with humans. I did manage one day to pick up one of the drakes which surprised me and he remained quite calm in my arms, but that was just luck that I'd caught him off guard. They are still all here and all get along together great. I like watching them swim and splash around and come running to get their snack of mealworms every afternoon. Yesterday we finally put our gander in with our 2 girls and they are doing fabulously together, thank God. That frees up the gander's pen now , & we've got it thoroughly cleaned out; so we are going to put the ducks in it. Michael said we'll put pavers in to help with the muddy messes they make. It just so happens we have alot of pavers This won't be their permanent structure but a temporary and adequate one while we build the new one giving them even more space. We intend to use pavers in it also. I wanted to open the area up to where my chickens free range too. It's not a huge area but along with the additional duck space, that would give the ducks and chickens more free range area. Do you think it's wise to keep them with the chickens? Our chickens do have a lovely coop for themselves. However, this space is also where our rabbit hutches-two 8ftx30", and our, what will soon be,three 4.5 ft quail pens are kept.This area is behind our attached 2 car garage and on the west side of our house.There is a cement patio, about 15'x15', that comes straight off the back garage door and another space that is paved with cement on the side of the garage that's the length of it, but only about 6'wide and ties in with the patio. The neighbor's trees overhang so there's not alot of flight room there in that side garage area. We also use that garage side to put our feed bins and composter. My explanation might be hard to picture, but just trying to explain the general area. So,if we offer that extra space, would they fly away? They are Welch Harlequins. Do your ducks free range? Ours will still need to be somewhat enclosed on the west side of the property by fencing but would not have a roof type fencing to keep them from taking flight & most of that fencing is a 6 ft property fence and my house/garage. It's approximately 15' wide by 44'long all together,maybe longer. Right now we have them surrounded by 2-8',36 " high dog exercise pens hooked together with a piece of plywood over half of it for shade; so they don't have room to take flight. But since we have 6 ducks now instead of just 3, that is why we have to build them a much bigger space. Also, my 2 older girls have never laid another eggs since the babies hatched. And as you see, the hatch rate was poor. Is this common? Our young girl is now giving us a daily egg. She started laying 30 days ago.I just can't understand why the other 2 girls stopped laying altogether. Thanks for your advice. This gives me hope that we can learn to enjoy our ducks too without such a constant mess of mud and flies. And thanks for reading this long rambling post

 

[Lynn Manes]

Here in CA, there are alot of redtail hawks mostly in the surrounding mountains. We live in a regular neighborhood at the edge of farmland and orchards, and my backyard area is 1/3 acre not counting my side area where we keep our rabbits, chickens but he must have traveled on thankfully. My dogs are very tiny-2-4 lbs. I rarely let them out anymore after my male maltese got fly strike really bad on his bum last year. Flies have become really bad in this city over the past 3 years. Now it scares me to put the dogs outside, so I gave their pen to my male goose. I'm so sorry about the losses to you both of your doxies. That would devastate me to lose one especially like that. I've been wanting to move to NC where I can have acreage, but then I think about predators that we are safe from here, along with mosquitoes which are scary bc of West Nile virus, so not certain I now want to move east of the Mississippi. Aargh! Decisions, Decisions

If you move to the mountains of Western NC you won't have mosquitoes  especially if you have ducks.

Are you in NC? I'm looking around the Hickory/ Granite Falls area as we have family there.

 

[Lynn Manes]

It's funny isn't it some kind of fear their going to open the egg and a duckling is going to pop out     Guess most don't see it that way if we give them chicken eggs. 

I think that's crazy. I finally had to stop selling them because we weren't getting enough to cover my needs. It also cooled off a bit and I'm baking like crazy and making lots of mini quiche to freeze for winter. An egg is an egg people.

Try convincing people that quail eggs aren't from babies. OMW!

 

[napdognewfie]

I get people asking what they are good for too. They're eggs. Duh.

 

[Lynn Manes]

I can't sell them either, I can't even give them away. I've tried to give them to ppl to try and they dont wanna!

I live in the country also farm community so theres alot of people who grew up eating all kinds of eggs...those r the people u want to talk to...try to reach older people who grew up in the country (on a farm...even better)! Those r the people who prefer duck eggs!

Funny bc our duck egg customers are in their 30's and 40's and they like them mostly for the size or for baking. We live in a large city, 1/2 million pop., but our main industries are agriculture and oil.

 

[Frindizzle]

I like to boil the duck eggs and give them to the chickens. They love them.

 

[season1223]

That's too funny! Baby eggs! Lmao! Bantam eggs r small too...ya just throw an extra one in ur recipe! Theyre all eggs! Bantam eggs r awesome for over medium eggs too...they're real easy to flip without poppin em! Lol!