The Quack Shack

[rjohns39]

Good morning folks Good evening Wunda & Kiwi

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Thanks! The white girls are a couple of months younger than the Runners so I’m not expecting anything soon. I’ve read a bit about the Runners and there seems to be quite a spread in opinion on when they start to lay.

It all depends on the time of the year: In general ducks start to lay when they are around three months old. But if that is in the middle of a cold, dark winter their bodies will delay the egg laying process until the weather becomes warmer and the days become longer. And even this rule is not without exceptions, some of my fall ducklings from last year started to lay their first eggs in early January. They are well fed, receive plenty of extra protein in their diet (cat-kibbles) and live in a warm cozy house, so they just started.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

The turkeys are on my crap list.

So I have a goose, Lacie, that I raised as a single gosling and she imprinted on me. I adore her. She's eight now. She always goes broody every year if she gets even three or four eggs in her nest.

This year is no different. She's been on a nest for a little over a week now. As I was out there today, she came off the nest and I saw that her leg was really bothering her. I caught her and it seemed fine, so I figured I'd keep an eye on it and if it wasn't improved in a couple days we'd go to the vet (yep, she's one of the only 'poultry' birds I have that I will take to the vet).

Well, I was doing a project today, putting up new netting over the bantam duck pen, so I was out there watching for a good while. She came out when she heard me changing the pools, then stopped right out of the coop and laid down, poor girl.

Cinnamon, the new turkey hen, ran over and started hassling her. Apollo, good gander that he is, ran over and started hissing and trying to get between her and Lacie, but these are small geese and Cinnamon is bigger than he is. Poor Lacie gave up trying to get away and laid down.

At which point Cranberry, the tom, came over and hopped on her and started attempting to mate. Well, I think I discovered the source of the leg injury. And as Cranberry has her pinned down, Cinnamon started attacking her face.

So of course I ran over and knocked Cranberry off and picked Lacie up. I ended up deciding that she'd need to go into the bantam duck pen to heal. So I put her in there. She got into their little pool to have a splash around, at least.

But that means I had to take her off her nest. So the eggs are now in my incubator, sigh. I'll set up a new nest in the bantam duck pen and put some fake eggs in it and see if she'll settle, and if she does she can have the real eggs back.

I was halfway to tossing all the turkeys in with the emus. I would have, too, if the coop in that pasture was in shape for habitation (it's not, another project). Boy, would they have learned fast about who the big birds around here really are.

I've decided that they ARE going in with the emus, as soon as the coop is back in shape. Them and the guineas.

One of your posts where i could use multiple reaction icons!
I laughed at the imagination of a randy turkey trying to harass an Emu! Boy, one kick and the turkey would become a low-earth-orbit satellite…
But your poor geese! It must be very frustrating for Apollo not to be able to protect his mate! Will you put him together with Lacie to the Bantam Ducks?
And what do they think about their new house-guest(s)?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Here are the troublemakers:

Please excuse the mud, we are right in the middle of mud season.

Do you have any other season than the mud season? - Here, around the house where the ducks do most of their havoc, there is the mud season at the start of the year, followed by the concrete-mud season, then comes another mud-season and then comes the frozen-mud season…
I remember having lush and green grass around the house, so lush that i had to cut it down with a trimmer after which i was covered in ticks! - Nah! mud is better!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Good Afternoon, Evening, Night, Morning or Day to everybody on the beautiful blue marble planet!

 

[rjohns39]

Good morning Hillbilly, have a great day

 

[igorsMistress]

It all depends on the time of the year: In general ducks start to lay when they are around three months old. But if that is in the middle of a cold, dark winter their bodies will delay the egg laying process until the weather becomes warmer and the days become longer. And even this rule is not without exceptions, some of my fall ducklings from last year started to lay their first eggs in early January. They are well fed, receive plenty of extra protein in their diet (cat-kibbles) and live in a warm cozy house, so they just started.

Wow that’s early! We have warm temps here and I give them feeder fish once a week and they get black soldier fly larvae or mealworms, plus whatever bugs they find in the yard and compost pile. I put out some oyster shells and I’ve noticed they’ve started picking at that a bit.

 

[Pyxis]

But your poor geese! It must be very frustrating for Apollo not to be able to protect his mate! Will you put him together with Lacie to the Bantam Ducks?
And what do they think about their new house-guest(s)?

I was debating that; moving all the geese in with the bantams, I mean. Apollo's other female, Zilla, is still laying and I didn't really want to mess her up by moving her. Of course I also don't want to have her get injured by my stupid turkeys either. I'm leaning in the direction of I'm going to move them both over as well, until I can get the turkeys moved.

The bantam ducks don't care, haha. They've all been out together free ranging before.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Wow that’s early! We have warm temps here and I give them feeder fish once a week and they get black soldier fly larvae or mealworms, plus whatever bugs they find in the yard and compost pile. I put out some oyster shells and I’ve noticed they’ve started picking at that a bit.

What most people don't know is, that ~100-130 years ago chicken eggs were a rare delicacy and eating duck-eggs was the standard. That is the time when the Dutch Hook-Bill ducks were cleaning the shipping channels in the Netherlands by the thousands and stories like "Jemima Puddle-Duck" were born.
Then unfortunately for the ducks and the chickens some greed capitalist discovered that you can stuff five chickens into a 1 cubic-yard wire cage, feed them on one side, let their poop fall through the wire and the eggs roll out at the other side and the industrial »egg-farm« was born. Suddenly chicken eggs became dirt cheap and there was no need to keep ducks anymore…
Compared to chickens, keeping ducks for eggs has three real advantages:

1. Ducks start to lay eggs much earlier than chickens
2. Many duck-breed simply "out-lay" a lot of chicken-breeds, the infamous Khaki Campbell lays over 300 eggs per year, almost one egg per day. Only a few industrial chicken-breeds come close to those numbers.
3. Duck eggs are about 1½ times the size of chicken eggs

SadlyFortunately one cannot stuff five ducks into a wire cage… they would simply refuse to live like that and starve themselves to death, so ducks cannot be used for industrial egg production.

And for the »Eeew! Duck eggs! They taste awful!« people: Your taste buds are so used to those cheap, watery chicken eggs from the super-markets, coming from poor hens that never see daylight or green grass and are fed with industrial waste… that any egg from any bird that lives happy in somebodies backyard would taste »Eeeew!« to you. Have fun with your peanut allergy!
Sorry for the rant, my neighbor got some rescued battery-chickens today, they looked so sad, so beaten up

 

[rjohns39]

Good morning folks Good evening Wunda & Kiwi