The Quack Shack

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Kefir is a fermented milk product. The grains are agglomerations of bacteria and yeasts that perform the fermenting. They are very beneficial for human gut flora and as I understand it that should also work for animals.

At the heart of the fermenting process is the fact that the microorganisms eat up the lactose (the milk sugar). Therefore fermented products (and I guess the fermenting little critters themselves) should not cause a lactose-intolerance reaction, or at the very least, are much less likely to cause it than just plain milk.

On a related note I wonder if ducks would eat sauerkraut, or dogs enjoy it (probably because of the stinky, ie. very dog-friendly, aroma).

Farting ducks does sound kind of threatening tbh.

You are correct, the lactose (milk-sugar) is the reason for the gas built-up in beings that lack the enzyme lactase, leaving too much sugar for the gut-bacteria.

Sauerkraut hmm? You want German quacking Dux! Better try Bratwurst!
A couple of years ago i tried to feed them silage and their response was that »wanna poison us?« look. At least my dux all seem to have a sweet toothbill and dislike almost everything with a sour taste. And they like salty stuff like pasta and fries…

And yes, farting ducklings are dangerous. Its not the loud plopping sound, its not the stink, but the smashing sound when the high-flying projectile hits something and you know you have to clean that up.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Last night was an absolute mess here in Big Chimney:
Shortly after sunset it started to rain. The rain turned into heavy snow accompanied by gusty wind and as a result the duck-run was completely flooded with the water overflowing into the duck-house.
That will be a fun job to clean out…

I need to visit the pond, from what i can see from down here it has started to overflow…

 

[Supercow]

Last night was an absolute mess here in Big Chimney:
Shortly after sunset it started to rain. The rain turned into heavy snow accompanied by gusty wind and as a result the duck-run was completely flooded with the water overflowing into the duck-house.
That will be a fun job to clean out…

I need to visit the pond, from what i can see from down here it has started to overflow…

Oh man that's crappy work in every sense.

Our duck house just happens to be raised a foot or so off the ground because it is a reincarnation of a wooden play-tower. Boy was I happy about that when we had flooding during summer.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Oh man that's crappy work in every sense.

Our duck house just happens to be raised a foot or so off the ground because it is a reincarnation of a wooden play-tower. Boy was I happy about that when we had flooding during summer.

The duck-house itself is raised too, but as it sits on a hillsite, the entrance-side is level to the ground and the later-added duck run is actually ½m below the surface. I have installed a drainage gutter on one side, but with all that water coming down so quickly and the dux dabbeling in the woodchips that became clogged.

 

[Luv Ducks]

Last night was an absolute mess here in Big Chimney:
Shortly after sunset it started to rain. The rain turned into heavy snow accompanied by gusty wind and as a result the duck-run was completely flooded with the water overflowing into the duck-house.
That will be a fun job to clean out…

I need to visit the pond, from what i can see from down here it has started to overflow…

We were soooooo lucky, the rain and snow mixed in was in our forecast but it missed us completely. Sorry you got hit so hard Frank.

 

[Canadian Wind]

I can't do video because I have no accounts anywhere to post itto, but I am the queen of blurry pictures.

You can post videos directly on BYC now. I have a few.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

We were soooooo lucky, the rain and snow mixed in was in our forecast but it missed us completely. Sorry you got hit so hard Frank.

It wasn't too bad, lucky me had decided to take the rotten hay out of the dux-run and used it to fill up the empty raised beds. So those beds prevented the mud from flooding the area in front of the patio and no hay in the dux-run was just absolutely great. Imagine you have to remove a mud soaked carpet of hay from somewhere! The wood-chip mud mix i could handle shovel by shovel, but a hay-carpet - its all in one heavy piece.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Despite being lucky and having removed the hay from the dux-run, i needed to rest before i was able to upload some new videos. Here i am draining about a foot of water from the dux run:

After that i tried to remove the mud and almost broke my wheelbarrow, so i hatched the new plan to pile up the mud on one side of the run to let the water drain out. I had a lot of help because Chaos and Mayhem came to remove all those pesky worms which make the mud so sticky and they brought some friends with them:

Chaos is the brown duck, standing in the puddle of mud and Mayhem is the handsome drake wandering around her.
In the end the dux-run looked like this, it was already too dark to make a video:

You can see the remaining mud-puddle and at the moment (2:30am) they are having yet another puddle party outside…

 

[Supercow]

Here's a Valentine's day gif ... Thank you Facebook

 

[Supercow]

Two months or so after the solstice the ducks' house arrest time has been lowered from 14 to 13 hours. Still a lot but hey it's happening. Up until now daylight lenghtening was mostly noticeable in the evening but the last week or so sunrise has also been improving. Yay!