The Migratory/Ornamental Waterfowl INFO Thread

[kangababy]

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Thanks! i feel better.. I was hoping ti was something to do with breeding season.. It was just weird to see that my divers were the only ones with it..

 

[kangababy]

Back to the covering of boxes and planting things in the aviary..

This weekend we planted a weeping mulberry in the Aviary and will be planing a few weeping cherru trees..

Has anyone tired these in theirs?
They are supposed to grow about 10ft tall to 14ft and spread about 10-12 foot.. we thought they would be great for shade and cover since they look like big bushes!

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

Quote:
Thanks! i feel better.. I was hoping ti was something to do with breeding season.. It was just weird to see that my divers were the only ones with it..

It not breeding, it just over preening of the breast. Kinda like a dog with a hot spot where he licks a bald spot on his rump, same thing with these, and mainly goldeneye family of ducks are the worst, harlequins and eiders will do it too. Outside of those species, mandarin drakes are bad about it too, never seen many others with it, they must just be the ones with OCD. And only ever seen it in drakes, never once seen a hen do it. But I have personally watched them do it. They'll sit there and just rake and rake their bills over that same area, literally plucking themselves.

great on the trees, never tried those myself, but anything bushy works great.

 

[destinduck]

Roger on the goldeneye and manderins being the worst .Aubrey is also correct and I should have added that. I too have watched them overpreen but it was always the ones lowest in the pecking order that had this problem and watched the pop to the chest by the other bird. Its both. I like the OCD the best though

,but reguardless it's a "spring thing" truly don't worry about it at all. My friend has a mulberry tree (the birds love it when the fruit falls) in his place but he had to wire it off so the birds could'nt get at it while it grew up. The only live plants I managed to grow in my big pen is a boxwood and a pomagranite and they still munched on them till they got out of reach. Of course if I ever build another pen all the plantings will be done before the birds are added and some ducks dont care about them anyway.But the ones that do... whew its tough. Just protect them with hardware cloth till they get tall enough is what I did. Mine even ate pampas grass if you can believe it. Its a wonder they didnt slice their tongues off.

 

[KansasKid]

Well i still haven't came up with a photo of the "ingrown feathers" but i have yet another question. On both drakes that i have had i noticed there bills have gotten significantly darker in color, so i wonder does it have to do with the negative temps. ? or is it "normal"

Then:

Now:

 

[kangababy]

So we were going to plant some weeping cherry trees but foudn out that when their leaves ae wilting they are poisonous if animals eat them.. and we all know ducks are going to eat them!

So my question to everyone... Is there a list anyone has foudn with toxic plants or even ones you might have had a bad experience with?

We are also going to build like a monkey bar set across the chanel of our ponds to grow vines on to give them shade during the summer.. any suggestions there? We were tols Wisteria but the barries are poisonous from what I have been able to google.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

kanga,
I cant believe I over looked that, yes all cherry trees are toxic, I guess I got side tracked on the weeping part and for some reason was thinking willows???

Red tips are toxic, and yes wisteria too, some juniper berries are too. There's a wide range or ornamental plants that are toxic to animals, that's why I always used the dug up wild ones, most of them are safe, hey and they are free.
all willows are fine, river birch, elms, dogwoods, wax mytrles, etc

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

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top bird looks 100% normal, brighter red is just breeding season
bottom bird, not sure what's going on there, it should be bright red like the top bird. Shouldnt be the cold, they can handle that just fine. May be a bit punnie or something?

 

[KansasKid]

Same bird. this is supposed to be my good drake. during our -8˚ temps (when the other drake died) both of there bills got real dark like this so i thought it might something like frostbite.

 

[KansasKid]

The first picture i took a while back sometime like in december. and the bottom picture is from yesterday.