The Migratory/Ornamental Waterfowl INFO Thread

[1lpoock]

Oh and I was wondering if you can tell a white wood duckling apart from a white mandarin duckling. I can tell the regulars apart, but I haven't seen any pics of white ducklings.

Also, (sorry for all the questions) how do you tell white females of those two breeds apart...they look almost identical!

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

Quote:
put the zips on loose enough at any age that they barely cant pass over their feet. As they grow, watch them once they grow into them, clip them off and add new loose ones.
As for id on whites. Wood duck hens always have a larger crest a mandarin hardly has one, but a woodie's is obvious. Also there is a tremendous voice difference in the two if all else fails, and a mandarin has a redder bill than the wood duck hen also the tip of a mandarin hens bill has that white, hooked tip. Babies can be tuff, just keep them seperate til you get use to id ing them, Personally I can just look at one and tell the difference. They each just have a different look to them, hard to discribe really, just slightly differnet looking birds. Once you handle a few houndred of them, you'll see it every time you glance at them, mainly in the head and bill area.

As for the questions, hey that's why I started this thread, keep 'em coming!!

 

[HottentotTeal]

For Hottentots, I wouldn't need to clip them or put ring bands on them since they are not from America?

I think it would be a good idea to use a ring band for identification still.


I'm just thinking ahead if by some miracle I am able to get a pair and they are able to hatch a duck or 2.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

thats right

 

[giffy]

A couple of things to add. If the FWS permit requirements state "hind toe from the right foot" then it means the right foot, not "as long as it its done on one or the other they wont say anything about it." Also, the requirements for proper marking (there are 4, you must do one) must be done in the first six weeks............toe clip, pinioned, seamless band or web tattoo. I have personally only seen tattooing on the webbing done on geese.

As for deciphering between Wood and Mandarin ducklings, in the first few days after hatching, the Mandarin ducklings head/neck area will be darker then the Wood ducklings. This works for the standard Wood/Mandarins, those with Silver/White/Apricot..........I do not have experience with them.

giffy
---------------

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

Quote:
didnt mention the tatooing bacuse it's like you said, never done and way too much effort and tools to worry with.
True by word of law, they say right foot. BUT they dont care as long as it's done. when you get birds in, different people mark them in different ways. I've had all types of markings come in over the years. The inspectors I have always had, never cared as long as they can physically see that the bird has been marked, thus my quote you mentioned. Standard wood ducks and mandarins are easy, it's they mutations 1lpook was referring too, they are a good bit tuffer at birth, but yes head color does tell the tail on normals, also bill color.

 

[Matapatos]

So the permit says specifically the right fot huh? Well, they have never been strict at all on enforcing these laws, from what I have heard. Even to the point of giving permits to keep birds in the city limits, which is against city laws and ordinances, but the FWS doesn't seem to care. I think I'll take my chances, thanks BBB.

So my next question is, which birds will keep and aviary 14'X24' and full of grass down fairly well. I have only one pair of mandarins right now, and I don't expect them to keep up with it, but I don't see them even grazing at all! I know wigeons graze, but will one pair of wigeon, 2 pairs of wood ducks, and 1 or 2 pairs of mandarins keep it down? I had to mow it the other day, even...

Next question is... How do Lesser Scaup and Ring necked ducks do in smaller ponds, 2' deep or so? And do they graze at all? I am looking at getting one or the other, as I love how they look, and am wondering how they'll do. I've heard bufflehead, redheads, and canvasback do OK on small ponds, but its tough to get them to breed... Any info specifically for scaup and specifically for ring necked ducks?

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

yes they say specifically the right side on all the marking, but have never once heard of any one having trouble with them on that. As some one mentioned before, I have usued it to mark breeds by parent origins, splits, etc. As long as they are marked you are good, but yes it does say right side last time I checked.
As for grazing, all your dabbler species will do it, divers not so much.
All of them will eat it and in a mixed collection it really is often hard to keep grass at all unless it is a huge avaiary.
The scaup, tufted ducks and ring necks will pick at it much batter than merganser and smew. Teal, widgeons, pintails, black ducks, shelducks (kinda mean) tree ducks, all those are graet grazers
Any of the divers are finicky reproducers too, of the species you mentioned, the ringnecks and to me the tufted (they are in the same style class) always did better, the scaup usually need to be 3 years old to start, but then again most all divers are at least 2 several 3 before they start to reproduce anyway. To me, the red heads were always the easiest to get to reproduce too by the way, thus their much cheaper price as compared to other diver species.
2 foot deep is fine for most any duck, even the divers. Just as long as they have room to play in it they will be fine, surface area is more important when you have a lot of birds.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

o kay gone start a few species specific sections now,


TEAL

To me, these were always some of my favorites, guess it was their small size and wide array of colors. There are tons of different teal species out there all equally beautiful in their own rights and come from about every continent in the world.
They also boast the smallest species of waterfowl in the world, the HottenTot ,it;ll fit in the palm of a mans hand, oh about 5 inches long or so when standing.
Most all teal are ground nesters, some will go both ways though, ring, Sharpe winged, chestnut breasted, and baikal were the only 4 species I ever had to use a box, rings almost always did. So if you get ring teal, do give them a wood duck style nesting box. Mine were always 18 inches tall, by 12 inches square, about 3/4 of the way up, put an oval shaped hole 3 inches tall 4 inches wide. (for goldeneyes, add an inch both directions). aside from them, a good grassy, or other wise well covered area of the pen will be perfect for teal nesting.
They do well on any prepared ration, a game bird style feed is best, and as I have mentioned before they love catfish food!
They do graze well on grass, so dont plan on keeping too much of that, after 1 season, it'll be gone unless you have a huge aviary. I always planted pampas grass and tuff ornamental grass like that in their pens, it works great for nesting too.
Of the teal species, the blue wing, green wing, falcated, cinnamon, baikal, gargany, and laysan I know are on the USFWS Permit list, most all the others are free of Federal papers.
Teal do get along great in a community style aviary and despite their common appearances, very seldom will inter breed, in fact I never had a teal cross and I had all of mine in one big community pen. This is not to say they wont or cant, but if properly paired they usually dont.
Some of the hens do take a trained eye to tell apart, the cinnamon and blue wing for instance. They make wood duck and mandarins easy. If you get into these, the wing bars are the simplest way to tell, cinnamons will have a mass of blue where the blue wing will mainly just have the blue wing bars, also a cinnamon has a longer bill.
Baikals will resemble green wings in eclipse plumage, but they are a good bit larger and always will have a white dot at the base of the bill on their face, where greenwings wont.
The other species arent too bad. But many do have identical colored sexes, so you will have to get good at vent sexing, which I'll out line later.
Marbled, cape, and a few others are this way. Hottentots are close but different if you look close enough. The males back tail and head "cap" will be black where the hens will be dark chocolate in color.
Most all species of teal are in full color and breeding by their second year, some will lay their first like the rings, but it has been my experience with them to give them at least 2-3 years on all waterfowl before you give up. Also, they love a well landscaped aviary, plain open barren pens dont cut it for any migratory waterfowl.
Logs, planted shrubs and trees, large stacks of stone around the ponds, anything to break up the pen and give them cover goes a long way in getting them to produce better.

One thing with teal is, they are small and very docile (baikals excluded they can hold their own) So watch them in mixed community pens, most all waterfowl are o kay, but some species of tree ducks are bullies, especially the Cubans, and all species of shelducks are to be watched closely. Shelducks should really be in their own per pair pens, but I'll get to them a little later.

Teal in most species will lay 4-10 eggs per clutch, hottentots 2-5. Most incubate fairly easily if you follow basic incubation guide lines, and as long as they arent disturbed, most hens make good broody moms. If you are pulling the eggs for incubation, on a lot of the species you can get 2-3 clutches per year per hen, especially the more prolific types like ringed, marbles, and such. They dry or wet brood easily , the starter chick and meal worms can be used to get them to start eating, but they usually dont take much encouragement. Be cautions with them in a brooder. Most are super tiny when hatched so dont put them in with older over sided ducklings, especially hottentots, best to keep the sized equally so they dont get trampled or bullied away from food and water.

Forgot to add about climate conditions. Most species of teal can take the harshest winter conditions you can throw at them, and really need no winter protection. Some of the tropical species do though, the hottentot, silver, puna, and brazilian are the ones that come to mind. All can take any summer heat with ease, just give them a little shade in the aviary and you're good to go.

 

[HottentotTeal]

Excellent information as usual.

I have read a few posts about ages for ducks, but I've seen various people say 10, 15, and 20 years.

Is the mortality for ducks the sameacross the board or are each species different? If one can live to 20 that seems kind of hard to fathom.