The Quack Shack

[rjohns39]

Good morning / evening folks

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Happy Wednesday Everybody!!!
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Stormy day here in West Virginia! We had the first frost last night, just -1° (30F) but enough to kill every plant that isn't frost resistant. Tomatoes, peppers, salad, sweet potatoes,... all dead. I need to harvest the raised beds asap.
Can you imagine, this weekend the forecast says sunny and 25° (77F).
I feel like a wreck today, my head is killing me.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Still rising there. Friday should be the peak, but from today its ment to rain everyday for 10 days, most days 5ml, so estimated 40

Well 4cm of rain over a period of 19 days doesn't sound too bad, yet on top of still rising waters… Let's just hope your dam holds up. Maybe in the future you may be able to move the house on top of a terp.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Our mallards don't migrate, perfect temperature here, but I have noticed they best in the tree hollows up high. Maybe some big boxes up in the trees?

I don't think you have freezing temperatures during the winter, have you?
My main worry is the Mallard's safety from predators, second is some protection from the weather, especially snow-storms.
You must have a different kind of Mallard in down-under: Here the Mallards don't roost in trees, they dabble in ponds and rivers. But we have Wood-Ducks her that nest in tree cavities…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Sounds to me like your Mallards have decided to go domestic since they haven't flown off yet.
what are you thinking of preparing? coop?

I wish i had an idea!
Food won't be a problem for them, i am willing to feed them through the winter with pellets, cracked-corn and cat-food, my two concerns are

1. Protection from predators
2. Shelter from bad weather

They walk into the duck-run to help themselves to pellets, but the duck-house is a no-go zone for the mallards! They seem to be claustrophobic; being on the brink of full panic when they are in the run and see me walking outside.
I didn't manage to cut away all the shrubs at the back-end of the pond, so i could not run the electric fence around it for predator protection. Once the pond's surface is frozen over, the floating island offers no protection anymore…

Vague idea: I have a lot of pallets here, so i could set up some of them as "shelter huts" by supporting one side with posts and covering the pallet with a tarp. Then covering the ground within that shelter with either wood-chips, hay or straw. Snow usually comes here from the north-west, so if i turn the opening to the south-east, they have some protection.
It would be best to set this up in the veggie garden as this area is protected against predators with an electric fence, but they won't go into the fenced-in area, even though they could easily fly over the fence.

As said, i am open for any suggestion!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Well 4cm of rain over a period of 19 days doesn't sound too bad, yet on top of still rising waters… Let's just hope your dam holds up. Maybe in the future you may be able to move the house on top of a terp.

I had to look up terp. interesting.

Maybe if you worked on them now by using feed you could get them in the garden and put up a protective shelter for them. Worth a try since it looks like they aren't planning on leaving Do the shelter first then work on training them to go inside the fencing. I mean you wouldn't be breaking any laws since they could fly away anytime they want.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Another exhausting day. Got the rental car (a Kia Soul, looks and drives like a brick!). Thank goodness I'm off tomorrow, I just want to sleeeeeeep!

 

[Plague]

Good evening/morning! Hope everyone is doing great, been busy lately so haven’t posted in a few. Thought I would share some pictures of our last babies growing nicely! Also our 4 adult drakes, that so far have not caused any issues, the lighter rouen is hope our first female. With our last batch we ended up with a male rouen, we we will be able to hopefully hatch some Rouen next year! We are going to have to remove we have decided on one of our blue Swedish males, along with the new male layer duck we believe it to be along with the golden 300 male. Today had ordered 10 female but order got mixed up so ended up with only 5 female, but two more Rouen was in the group, a couple khaki Campbell and another golden 300 female. So we have 3 rouen, 3 golden 300 and 2 khaki females til next week! Next week should be getting the correct 10 lol, so we are going to have our hands full for sure!

 

[Miss Lydia]

They are precious

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I had to look up terp. interesting.

Maybe if you worked on them now by using feed you could get them in the garden and put up a protective shelter for them. Worth a try since it looks like they aren't planning on leaving Do the shelter first then work on training them to go inside the fencing. I mean you wouldn't be breaking any laws since they could fly away anytime they want.

Terps are very common at the North-Sea coast of Germany and Denmark and have protected Homes and Humans for centuries. As a kid spent a summer vacation on Hooge, which i remember as the most boring summer vacation of my life, nowadays i wish i could repeat that…
I had the same idea with using food to lure the Mallards into the veggie garden while buying Winter Wheat this afternoon. The problem are the ducknagers: They do like to go into the veggie garden and once the ducknagers are in there all the other ducks are so happy to have gotten rid of them that they would rather starve than join them. - I need to make a »Good Morning Ducks!« video and you'll understand…
I need to remove the fence around the veggie garden temporarily anyways, so that i can re-wire it to include the berry-garden. I will set up that shelter there (i can even use the fence-posts!) and then leave a small hole in the fence for the mallards to slip through. This week and next week the summer is forecasted to return here with temps between 20° and 27° (68-80F)!