The Quack Shack

[Trimurtisan]

That is very touching. Thank you for sharing

I had tears!

Thank you for taking the time to read it. I get emotional just about everytime I talk about that time in my life. Telling my stories though helps remind me it's in the past. It helps me appreciate where I am in life today. It's all just memories at this point.

I do still deal with anxiety, but between meditation and Dino, I manage it pretty good.
This is Dino in action if you've every been curious what an ESA trained in spotting anxiety looks like. First of, he cries at my feet till he gets my attention and I pick him up. Then he leans in to my chest forcing my lungs to compress a bit and slow down my breathing. Once my breath is under control it's all love and kisses till he falls asleep on my lap.

This is him right after typing the story out. I"m still not sure how he knows, but he was sleeping on the couch right before this.

 

[quackiemama]

Awww he is the best!

 

[Miss Lydia]

 

[Trimurtisan]

So these are the pictures I actually was going to share this morning.

With keeping the younger ducks together, the mess with food has been twice as much. To help encourage them to forage, I'll throw some on the ground and it seems to be working great, but I can't just put a days worth of food out like that. I saw a video where a guy made what he called a duck gate,a nd it just followed the idea of the diy feeders where they have to put their head in/threw a hole. He just used a framed length of 2x4 welded wire, so I just put a trough out side their temp pen.

It worked for the first 15 minutes till the Pekin found it devoured it. So then I attached chicken wire to the fence and wrapped it over the trough. That did absolutely nothing. So I placed the tough in a plastic crate, draped the chicken wire over it, and secured it to the fence. It's not pretty at all, but it sure did work out great.

The leader of Team Flappy Foot, my oldest female Pekin was upset her free treats was gone. Boy was she loud, honking as soon as she saw me. It's not like they are starving, but they are not on starter feed anymore, and seem to just LOVE the stuff.

So the current pen is starting to get small as the little ones grow like weeds. The angles of the pic make it look worse than it is though. For the time it's working out pretty good, and nobody is getting trampled, or stuffed in the corners. I've placed a dish of a 4 tier fountain in their for a pool. The ramp is made of 2 commercial shelf pieces placed opposite of each other to get a grid pattern. The ramp is just high enough that if one of the runner babies needed a place to hide they could fit under it, but I've not seen it happen yet. In regards to eating, it is a bit of a frenzy, but about half of them can get their head in there at once, while the others are rotating around for drinks. After the first morning feeding frenzy, I fill the trough back up and it seem to keep them content for a good 4 hours or so.

This is when Daisy was screaming at me. She sure is loud when she wants something. She's the tubby one on the far left.

 

[Trimurtisan]

At night time the younger ducks have still be separated, but next to and in view of each other. My wife was at a thrift store last week and found 2 "pop-up dog kennels" for $5. With the shack flooding, I was not comfortable leaving the young ones in there. I try to keep it clean in there, but it washed in a bunch of stuff in from the yard, and I just don't want to risk their health. Plus the ducks have been much easier to handle now that they see me all the time.

I'd never put a dog in one of these flimsy things, but they are working great for the ducks. I do have a large heating pad under the red "pop-up" for the baby runners that takes up about 1/3 of the floor space. At night I put a fitted sheet over them and in general they quite down. Though the random shuffling in the night has triggered a few dog barks, but it's not bad in general.

 

[Trimurtisan]

This is the smallest of the Barnyard Bantams that is left. It's also one of the chicks the rooster was picking most. It's been living with the Seramas for the last ~12 days, and still on the bottom of the pecking order, but no longer being bullied. I was happy to see today it's feather are starting to grow back on it's back. I'm not sure, but I think it has a Serama father. The marking on it's face looks a lot like A'pollo did when I first got him.

Oh, it sings quite often too. I'm not sure if that's normal, and I thought he was crying from being picked on, but it's not. Sometimes I'll look in and it's just sitting there chirping and tweeting away with nothing appearing to be bothering it.

 

[Trimurtisan]

The Runners are getting their feathers in!
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[Trimurtisan]

A bit on inner city dancing mixed to some inner tribal dancing anyone?

 

[Trimurtisan]

I love honey raw for me. I think sour wood is my favorite although I have never tasted gallberry.

Hmm, I've never heard of sour wood honey. When I did a search on it this image popped up though!
Is it normally a darker honey?

Winter Park is only 10 minutes from here!
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It's $22 per 16oz... That's about 2x the price of most the local honey, but good honey is not cheap, and cheap honey is just garbage. (sorry (but not sorry) I get a bit picky with my food) I hope I can actually go visit, and purchase directly. That would make 4 local farms to source from.

 

[Trimurtisan]

I'm also getting some Black Australorp eggs from @john_wrightson2003 to hatch with the O Shamo! By the way folks, @john_wrightson2003 has been very helpful with my questions and lining up shipping dates so that hopefully both shipments of eggs arrive at the same time. I'm excited!

The misses will be happy to have an actual egg laying chicken. She loves all the birds, but she's not big on the idea of eating duck eggs. When I say I'm picky with food it in regards to quality, she's just flat out picky.

A meat n' taters girl if you will. It's okay though, not like I need much of a "good" reason to get more pretty birds.