The Quack Shack

[Pyxis]

She usually only takes about one a week. I gave her a talking to about being piggy. She may not move for a couple days.

Maybe she's gravid and extra hungry, haha. Stealing eggs so she can make her own eggs.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Maybe she's gravid and extra hungry, haha. Stealing eggs so she can make her own eggs.

I did wonder that. It is that time of year. Baby fawns everywhere and two little piggies playing in the yard yesterday.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Yes, we're worried whether on balance she's making progress or not.

She will run, even quite quickly, to stay with the flock wherever they go. Or at least run until the batteries run out, then take a few slow steps and plop down.

The trouble is, once she has stopped and the flock is around her or nearby, she just won't do much. She doesn't do all the duck behaviors when the others do - bathing, foraging, drilling holes, drinking and eating - you know how ducks normally do everything as a group. Not her.

Once in a while will she remember to get up and maybe take some water and peck a little at food; but very tentatively. The only time we can get her to reliably eat at least something is overnight when she's in the crate inside the duck house.

I'm enclosing a photo of dinner that was served for the past night - chicken crumble, corn, barley, cooked peas and vitamin water. She drank half of the water and all of the food except for the crumble of which only half was taken. You can estimate the quantity by looking at the corn and peas.

I read up on niacin stability under heat (I know some of the B's are not happy about that) and it seems OK, so your rice hint looks like it should work fine, we'll try that. It is presumably also resilent to air and sunlight so my "let's put vitamins in every water basin over the day" thing seems OK too.

Junior is not really fully feathered and not really waterproof; there was a rainshower yesterday, she looked very wet and was cleaning herself constantly for hours after. We sometimes just grab her and pour water over her beak or dunk her head so the nares would be OK - since she doesn't seem intent on doing it. I don't even know if we're doing anything good with that.

All the other ducks seem to be in fine shape. The other 2 newcomers have integrated well, we very rarely see them being pecked at by the original ducks anymore and they fully take part in all group activities.


View attachment 3525175

That sounds exactly like little Peepeep! She/He would also run with the other five ducks, then lay down and forget the world around, did not eat or drink and fell more and more behind with her development. At this time (2018) i had no experience with duck, otherwise we would not have lost her.
I suggest, assuming that it isn't too difficult for you to pick Junior up (does she trust you?) then sit down with her, maybe in your lap and offer her food and water at least once a day. Stuff her! She will thank you later in her life!
is something like cracked corn available in Slovenia? - I don't feed whole corn to my ducks, they have a really hard time to digest that, most of it comes back out on the other side unharmed. And then it starts to grow in the compost, attracting the deer that peel off the bark of the fruit trees as desert… another story.
Pees are the best for ducks! They contain a lot of protein and B-vitamins.
As for the Vitamin Rice: I also brewed Anti-Biotics rice for the ducks in early spring to fight their eye infections. I boiled the water with the rice and let it sit until the pot was just luke-warm. Then added the powdered antibiotics and stirred. The rice will absorb all of the wate together with everything solved in it. Rice is one of the best delivery systems for anything you want to give to your birbs.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Salutations, all. We'll be having a high of 32c / 83f today. I'll be inside where the A/C can keep me at a more normal temperature.

Just 32°? - I don't use the AC until outside temperatures approach 40° - rarely happens here. Or the humidity becomes unbearable.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Posted this in another thread but thought you guys might want to see it. Miss snake got greedy this morning and had four eggs.
View attachment 3525890

That would have been a nice omlette!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Pandemonium in the Duck-House!

Broody Ducks are crazy! @shawluvsbirds

For whatever reason Buffzilla duck decided that having a nest-mountain in the corner is not good enough and started to move her nest more to the middle of the - hm - let's call it balcony:

That was before i hastily added that piece of wood that you can see acting as a reiling on the picture above. And of course eggs dropped from the upper level into the straw below where Violeta Duck hastily secured them into her own nest!

So now i have two Ducks, sitting on nests, containing eggs in all kind of development stages… - Makes the CCI looking more and more necessary, more on that thing later…
Here is Buffzilla rebuilding her nest:

Of course now her eggs are evenly distibuted everywhere between the corner and the middle of the balcony…
Oh, and by the way while i was securing the make-shift reiling, Violeta Duck happily ate my left leg…

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

That would have been a nice omlette!

She usually just eats one and then curls up in the duck nest to digest. She's very tame and to get her out of the coop I have to pick her up and relocate her. They are supposed to musk you with very stinky stuff but she hasnt.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Just 32°? - I don't use the AC until outside temperatures approach 40° - rarely happens here. Or the humidity becomes unbearable.

It gets a lot warmer than that inside, believe me. And with eggs in the incubator, I need to keep the interior temperature at a certain level or else I'll end up with balut!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

It gets a lot warmer than that inside, believe me. And with eggs in the incubator, I need to keep the interior temperature at a certain level or else I'll end up with balut!

Ah, i forgot you're in a trailer. Yes, you're right those heat up pretty bad! Fortunately the house i live in had been built in a time when workers took pride in their results of their work. Outside walls made from cinder-blocks, filled with mortar and iron rods. That keeps the house much colder than the outside.
There are neighbors here who have covered the south side of their manufactured homes with strawbales to insulate them against the summer heat.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Pandemonium in the Duck-House!

Broody Ducks are crazy! @shawluvsbirds

For whatever reason Buffzilla duck decided that having a nest-mountain in the corner is not good enough and started to move her nest more to the middle of the - hm - let's call it balcony:

That was before i hastily added that piece of wood that you can see acting as a reiling on the picture above. And of course eggs dropped from the upper level into the straw below where Violeta Duck hastily secured them into her own nest!

So now i have two Ducks, sitting on nests, containing eggs in all kind of development stages… - Makes the CCI looking more and more necessary, more on that thing later…
Here is Buffzilla rebuilding her nest:

Of course now her eggs are evenly distibuted everywhere between the corner and the middle of the balcony…
Oh, and by the way while i was securing the make-shift reiling, Violeta Duck happily ate my left leg…

oh my goodness i have the same exact thing going on here!