Next time you see a hedge hog, could you please try takr a photo?
I did try, ran back to the house to fetch the phone but on my return the ducks were just peacefully patrolling the spot which me hedgehog had already left.

But this was the third sighting in the last couple of weeks (first one for ducks) so I hope we meet again and I'll carry the phone on me more diligently.
 
Odd, duck eggs I can eat almost raw, chicken eggs I am very sensitive to depending on time of year and have found its inline with seasonal change of feed. I wonder if its something the ducks are eating upsetting your belly?
I don't know if it could be that or not. They get a small amount of scratch grains along with their layer feed, some lettuce occasionally, bugs and grass for a short period of the day, fresh water daily and Flock Raiser. I put the Flock Raiser in because I still have the younger ducks with my older ones. The boys all get Flock Raiser that I know are boys for sure as they are separated but I don't know the sex of the 5 week old Mallard and Black Swedish for sure yet. I have been able to eat Chicken eggs practically all runny and soft boiled my whole life but not the duck eggs. I guess our systems are all different. Some of my friends can eat them sunny side up, just not others like us.
 
Last edited:
Beautiful Ducks. The Black is your Black Swedish right? It looks so much like my half Call Duck Black Swedish. Still not sure of the sex of mine but hoping for a girl. She is getting bigger than the Call Ducks since she is only half. Not huge yet though. I saw a beautiful purple band on her wings yesterday while holding her and I didn't know if that was normal or not. She has white on her wings also and her chest, notice as I keep calling her her. Fingers crossed, lol.
Ho old is she? - The Black Swedish ducklings started to quax at an age of ~four weeks last year. That is, two of the three... The third one continued to peep and became Ralphie Dux.
 
The soybeans were prepared for pickup in a tied bag and when we got home we found out why - there was a distinct fungal smell when opened. (We got a 30 kg bag for 10 eur though because normally the guy sells by the ton.)

As we absolutely want to avoid alphatoxins or other nasty stuff (I had a close encounter with cancer, maybe I'm over-cautious because of that but ... better safe than sorry) I washed them, soaked them a bit and roasted them at 250 C in the oven.

Since the ducks are not giving any ducks about them I will probably grind them up and sprinkle over other more popular food.
Soybeans do have a weird smell naturally! - That's likely the reason why we don't eat them directly, but only consume them inf the form of soy-sauce or protein add-ons to other food.
Your soybeans were not moldy or bad at all. That's the natural smell of soy-beans.
I once visited a soy-bean farm and started to gag upon entering their storage facility…
 
Ho old is she? - The Black Swedish ducklings started to quax at an age of ~four weeks last year. That is, two of the three... The third one continued to peep and became Ralphie Dux.
She is almost 6 weeks and does not actually peep anymore but also does not quack yet. Some say theirs didn't until they were 7 weeks old. July 8th she will be 8 weeks old and I figure if she doesn't quack by then she is part of the Mafia group that I have, lol.
 
Today I decided that we have accumulated enough eggs so we can prepare something for breakfast with our overnight visitors (software development crew, usually remote work but sometimes we like to get together).

I was a little worried because I have read many descriptions ranging from "like chicken eggs, only more so" to "the white is leathery unless prepared in some special different ways". Our practical experience was definitely the first, ie. they are simply eggs, no special treatment needed, but very good ones. Good taste, good coloring. We did a simple "sunny side up" dish just to establish a basic starting point.

This is still experimental small scale production - 5 ducks old enough to lay but usually just a single egg per day and yesterday there was unexpectedly one in the afternoon as well - must have been from the same duck that already laid an egg in the morning because the shell was rubber :) The content was fine though.
Eggs are eggs are eggs! - There is no such thing as a "duck-egg taste". The taste of the eggs heavily depends on what the birds (or reptiles) have eaten while they produced the eggs. Would you feed your ducks only with fish, there is a good chance that their eggs have a fishy smell.
The food that is fed to the chickens in commercial egg-farms is specially designed to keep the taste of the supermarket eggs as bland as possible, so that no customer is "offended" by a too "eggy" taste. Feed Kale/Cabbage/Mustard leafs, just something from the brassica family to your ducks and you will notice that the yolk becomes more orange and the eggs will taste "eggier". Red Cabbage works best, it makes the legs and bills of my ducks shine bright orange!
There are, however differences in the details: Sometimes, people who are allergic against chicken-eggs don't feel any symptoms after eating duck- (or other) eggs. That might also be a placebo effect…
 
I find in our household that if our eggs are not throughly cooked whether it be hard boiled, fried, scrambled, that we get a belly ache from them. At first it was just my Son and then I saw that I was in the same boat. Our friend that I give them too said theirs have to be throughly good also so we are not the only ones like that.
I like to eat my scrambled eggs moist, not crumbly. Fried eggs should be sunny side up for me and boiled eggs need to have the yolk creamy to a bit runny to please my taste buds.
Never had tummy aches from my duck's eggs. However i had a severe nose bleed after the first duck-egg fart i released… I assume that is because duck-eggs are a good source for Selenium, whose compounds are known to be extremely smelly…
full
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom