The ducks are really cute...so are the turkeys. Better watch your back with all those potential stalkers. Looks like you are outnumbered.Glad you enjoyed it. Just what I do and I expect others do the same and then lots do things differently too...so long as we are happy and the animals/birds are too. Biggest test is what ones survive me....ha ha ha...
Oh you guys are too sweet. I love having them and I try hard to make them thrive. Don't always manage it and always ready to learn something new and IMPROVED. I figure we post what we know & think to be good and see if others got stuff to add...make things even better for them birdles.
Hatching today...widdle East Indie.
I have had this here pretty much always--day or two early on the hatching... When I whine at Rick about it, he just says, "They want out and about--the sooner, the better!"
Note the date, 25th...so early!
Evil birds...
Now notice I use felt markers to mark my hatching eggs...I don't give a flipping HOOT about safety concerns in regards to using felt markers. I've tried the pencils and done MORE damage poking holes into the hatching eggs, and then with the waterfowl and turks, the pencil wears off BEFORE the things even hatch...so felt tipped sharpie markers (nfi) is what I use faithfully. Too bad, so sad, the birds have to survive ME and that in itself is quite a dangerous undertaking! I have heard some use a grease or China pencil to some success marking hatching eggs but I don't even know where to find a China pencil no more's--my one Gran would but she is no longer of this Earth. So I weld the felt pens and apologize to nobody for my use of them. They work!
Four Silver Appleyards, another Black (no noticeable crest this time) with a Bib (but no white flights--show you that point in a moment here) and three more Greys. Got eight more ducklings to add to the brooder bin a din ding! Yes, the Appleyards will end up as adults much much larger than the other ducklings but at this stage in the brooder game, there are no huge size differences in day old ducklings. Some of the tinier fist-sized-as-adults exhibition Call ducks would be too small but not got any of those hatching right now, so no worries there.
So the four Silver Appleyards (another Appleyard is finishing up hatching now too, so technically five Apples thus far!) are ready to go to the brooder. Note how two of the Appleyard ducklings have dark wider Mohawk head lines...these ones tend to be darker ducks as adults than the ones with lesser dark stripes. Kinda kewl knowing adult plumage variances as day olds in the ducks!
The other two turkeys that were egg bound (not really, just not ready to hatch out yesterday) and hiding have made their appearances known.
Two Jersey Buffs and a Bourbon Red - both have similar colour patterns, same roots in developing them as the JB was made originally by the New Jersey Ag Experiment Station in the 1940's using Bronze, Blacks and Bourbon Red turkeys.
Colour wise genetically:
- Bourbon Red is a Bronze based turkey with two doses of recessive red.
- Jersey Buff is Black based turkey with two doses of recessive red.
Had to post this EXTRA silly one...sorry, I burst out laughing when I was going thru the pics...yeh...hilarious!
Here's lookin' at YOU kid!
This is the first one to hatch and still eyeing me up in all my ugliness (for a turkey, yeh, I am purty durn ugly and glad of that, eh!). Such CUTE faces?? Yeh, turkeys...so cute only a mother could love them.
The three turks will stay in the incubator Buster one more day and then come out to be brooded tomorrow morning. I like to keep me turkeys warm (warmer than chicks and waterfowl need) and with only three, I will keep these ones toasty inside Buster with two glass tealights; one filled with egg yolk (hard boiled) and the other with some water and marbles. Added insurance they get a good start and stay warm.
Next hatch of turks there are way more, so probably not do the same regiment with those ones...out to brood much sooner--soon as they are dried off, not waiting a day like I am with these three. I am just a paranoid person, so better safe than sorry I killed them off because I brooded them sooner than waiting a day. They are like chicken chicks and can easily get by for a day or two without feed.
Again, proof the marbles work, Appleyards are barely in the bin and snarking back waterfowl starter. Attacking those attractive shinies!
See the Crested Black Bibbed duckling (hatched out yesterday) there on the left middle behind the eating starter Appleyard...NOTE the dot of light colour at the end of the wings on the Black Bibbed.
I use a non-medicated starter (NO ampro) for ducks and geese NOT chicken starter ... not EVER! I don't see Junglefowls in the swamp eating...I don't see the Mallards on the jungle floor rousting up a meal--two different species that DEMAND different feeds. I don't see turkeys in the swamps or jungle, so there are THREE species specific starter feeds we feed...all different components and amounts of very minute but important ingredients. I have an article published in the Feather Fancier on Poultry Rations, article 8 on my website under Tales from Rat World...go have a look see at the differences.
I add No. 1 sized Granite grit on the second or so day I begin feeding the birds hatched out. I want them to fill up on feed, not rocks at first...but with multiple ages in hatching, I'll sprinkle some on the back side of the starter dispenser.
Appleyard still horking on starter...hungry biz that hatching, eh?
There will be NO white flights on this one. There is a tiny splash of water marking the location of the wings there...helpful in this photo to show you the location of where the light coloured down should have been to indicate white flights.
Far right on the waterer...see the wing, there are NO light markings on that Black Bibbed's wings!
There is not really a Bibbed kinda variety as in named just that but to be a properly marked BIBBED duck, you are to have a specifically shaped white bib (triangle or heart shaped)...and you are to have matching white wing flights, white primary feathers. Not really proper to have a white bib and no white flights...got bib, need white flights to match it! LOL
On the "Blue Swedish Ducks" according to APA:
On the "Blue Call Duck" according to ABA:
Unlike chickens which can have chick down (baby down) that does not even RESEMBLE what the adult feathers will look like (think Partridge pattern--argh!)...the kewl thing about ducks, is with a little practise, you can instantly see at day old hatching the approximate number of white flights the Bibbed ducks will have. You can see bibbed ducks that have NO white flights at all and excessive amounts of white flights too...or even UNbalanced numbers...both wings require 1 to 3 white flights...not five or more! There are even ducks that hatch that have no bib but have white flights...kinda interesting the combos that are possible.
It is hard not to like the personable birds...the ones in your face...the ones that are always there...always looking back at you looking at them...looking you in the EYE! I love birds that show attitudes...confidence to l00k you in the eye and a presence that they ARE something...something to be admired about that "sense of self."
That first one to hatch yesterday...is still at it. Call me paranoid...but here is proof this is not a figment of my imaginations of which I have many...born with imaginations myself. In my old age I mutter to myself about these things...can be quite disturbing in fact...to those who witness it. Bwa ha ha...heading for that SPECIAL home...for sure now...SOON!
Photographic IN YER FACE proof this one is a real ham...a Duck Stalker of the worstest kind!
I open the lid on the brooder bin to take pics of the newest additions and WHO pops up on the starter feed container--right in my face practically...???
Yeh...Crested Bibbed Black...off on the side there to the right, another potential Duck Stalker...the Bibbed Black without the white flights and no crest. There might be a genetic problem surfacing here..."bonds on humans" and that would be quite horrible...to have ducks that like the humans that are in servitude to them....horrible thoughts eh?
Every time I look at the photos I have taken over the past two days...Duck Stalker is there, looking at me, looking at them. Strange indeed...wondering if I should seek a court order...NO stalking the Keeper...ha ha ha...and that second Bibbed Black...same giving me the FTD eyeing up...
"Yeh...be afraid...very....very afraid...dun dun DUN...."
I have many more eggs set from the Black Cresteds that made these two. Has me thinking at the end of the season,,,there could likely be STAMPEDES of these <evil> Black <evil> Duck <evil> Stalkers. All wanting me to notice them. Be a fan favour...might be ripped limb from limb by ducks...billed to death... Oh my...the concerns I DO so feel about my upcoming fate!
FTD...?
Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada
Just say, "They make me happy, you want me to be happy, don't you?"
Just say, "They make me happy, you want me to be happy, don't you?"
super big since the kids and I REALLY wanted those.
