The Quack Shack

[Supercow]

Thanks everybody for the advice, will go easy on this.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Thanks everybody for the advice, will go easy on this.

if you put oyster shells out separately your layers will only use it as needed.

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

 

[Pyxis]

Just fished this out of my mailbox:

Bought it on that new Chinese web-site that is clogging your mail-boxes and browsers with ads currently. They have some unique stuff for reasonable prices, but most cheap stuff is just that…

I think this is the goose from Untitled Goose Game. There are a lot of memes about the goose, and one common one is this picture of him holding the knife. Or, maybe yours is a duck, based on the memes of the goose, haha.

Very cute, fun game if anyone wants to check it out.

Spoiler: Goose

 

[Canadian Wind]

I think this is the goose from Untitled Goose Game. There are a lot of memes about the goose, and one common one is this picture of him holding the knife. Or, maybe yours is a duck, based on the memes of the goose, haha.

Very cute, fun game if anyone wants to check it out.

Spoiler: Goose

Oh, almost got that game!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Ah, @WannaBeHillBilly , we also got our first strawberry today, it's a glorious day

In the evening i discovered that there will be more ripe strawberries in the next couple of days! I have to weed between the strawberry plants again and also have to cut the grass around the strawberry-patch, actially i have to cut the grass in the entire berry-garden. It grew a full foot during the last week! I can probably make the first hay of the year from it.

Also a nice surprise by the ducks: I've noticed that when I'm doing something and am a bit late in coming to guide them into their house, they would move toward it on their own when it gets dark enough...

... and today they were waiting on the very entrance, sitting on the ramp; they saw me coming, said their quacks and went in. A great victory for ducks and humans.

They are now 4 months old. I'm considering whether it's time to get started with the calcium boost so that by the time eggs arrive in a month or so (fingers crossed) their bodies are fully prepared.

My ducks assemble in, what i call the duck-yard, the area between the humon-house and the duck-run, during twilight and wait for me to bring out their supper-bowl. Only the puddle-ducks will go inside by their own. I started the supper-bowl ritual five years ago and now i am stuck with it, Even the Mallards have started to enjoy it, yesterday (Pre-Friday!) Missus Mallard jumped into the supper-bowl and started filling up on salad, cabbage and cat-food and did not even flinch when i lifted the bowl and carried it into the duck-house. Mind, Missus Mallard is a wild mallard…
Mr. Mallard also ran after his wife into the Duck-House and they both stuffed themselves. Then they patiently waited at the door to be let out. My ducks were baffled!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

@Supercow agree with Miss Lydia. Dux are alot less likely to need calcium than chickens, and too much calcium can lead to health issues (brought a drake that had only ever eaten layer pellets and he could not walk, stored it all in his legs). Ducks are sponges, they absorb everything even if they don't need it. Extra calcium may also require a chainsaw to crack eggs... I learnt this with my very first muscovies.

All of my ducks and drakes are being fed so called "Layer Pellets" with "extra calcium" and no drake ever had any issues with health issues due to this. - During mating season (now!) i wish they had health issues! These are urban legends:

• hard water will cause arteriosclerosis - The though is that calcium deposits in the blood vessels cause blockages. Truth is that the blockages are caused by fat.
• hard water or too much salt will cause kidney-stones - Same thought and equally wrong. Fact is that calcium is easily expelled by the kidneys as calcium-chloride, which easily dissolves in water.

Things that will cause problems with kidneys - not only in ducks - are vegetables that contain oxalic-acid, like rhubarb, spinach and clover, especially the "sauer-clover" from the genus oxalis -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis - Oxalic-acid is named after these plants!
Calcium-oxalate is nearly insoluble in water and 90% of all kidney-stones are made of this.
Even though all my ducks eat "calcium rich layer-pellets" both genders happily dig their bills into the pipe-elbow with the crushed-oyster-shells and flush with a sip of water. As long as you never feed spinach or rhubarb to your ducks it is perfectly ok. My ducks don't eat clover.
And yes, extra Calcium will strengthen the egg-shells to a point where they can be weaponized. My wife broke a porcelain bowl with a dux-egg once.

During late-winter/early-spring, when my ducks often develop problems with the egg-shells i serve my ducks "Calcium-Rice": One cup of white rice, two and a half cups of water into a pot, bring the water to a boil, turn off the stove, mix a table-spoon of calcium-glucconate and two table-spoons of glucose into the water, then cover with a lid and wait until all the liquid has been absorbed by the rice.
Calcium-glucconate is very well absorbed by organisms (yes, also humons!) and will solve egg-shell problems within 24 hours.
Another reason for soft-eggs is lack of Vitamin-D, which results in the inability of the body to absorb calcium. - That's the reason why i grow fodder for my ducks during the dark season. - And freeze kale and cabbage for their supper-bowls.

Wow! - I wrote too much! - Fact is, that all organisms are able to absorb the things they need from their food and expel the excess without being harmed. People who drink "hard water" (rich in Ca and Mg) don't have more kidney-stones than people who drink "soft-water". Unless other factors, like toxins, come into play.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I think this is the goose from Untitled Goose Game. There are a lot of memes about the goose, and one common one is this picture of him holding the knife. Or, maybe yours is a duck, based on the memes of the goose, haha.

Very cute, fun game if anyone wants to check it out.

Spoiler: Goose

This web-site has some funny teaser-videos: https://goose.game/

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Happy Friday to Everybody!​

Just one more day and the weekend is here! - Yesterday afternoon i thought somebody is outside, knocking at the house:

Nope, a pileated woodpecker taking care of the dying apple-tree…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

And that is Buffzilla, sitting on inside her ever growing nest-burg:

Remember, that thing is on the first level of the duck-house, not on the ground! While i was feeding her with meal-worms yesterday, she lifted her body for a moment and under her it looks like the inside of a golf-ball shop…
If that all hatches…