The Quack Shack

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Update on Blanca Duck:
As i promised her yesterday, Blanca Duck spent the whole day outside with her friends, safely in the duckling box. Her right leg is getting a bit better every day, but see for yourself:

Tonight i have her sleeping on a floormat instead of puppy pads. I have noticed that her toenails are getting stuck in those pads, causing her foot to flip back. Somehow i have developed a great routing in cleaning those floormats, i wonder how...

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Wish I could start preparing things for planting, but there's still over a foot of snow on the ground in most areas. And ice. Lots of ice.

The project for the next few days is to try to dig my car out.

And as far as i understood Ryan Hall, there's more bad weather in store for you…

 

[Canadian Wind]

Wow, what a bunch... My four female 'regular' ducks are loud enough, I don't know if I could stand that cacophony!

And yeah, I saw that video from Mr Y'all. I'm hoping for the early-ish Spring here. If what he says is true (cold at the end of the month, then milder) I will take it. As long as cold doesn't mean me freezing again.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Update on Blanca Duck:
As i promised her yesterday, Blanca Duck spent the whole day outside with her friends, safely in the duckling box. Her right leg is getting a bit better every day, but see for yourself:

Tonight i have her sleeping on a floormat instead of puppy pads. I have noticed that her toenails are getting stuck in those pads, causing her foot to flip back. Somehow i have developed a great routing in cleaning those floormats, i wonder how...

Good thing you have her contained or she may have been right in the orgy. lol

 

[Luv Ducks]

She does look like she is improving well and it is good that she is not being mated right now as the extra weight would not be good on her foot. She looks great!

 

[Supercow]

Anybody here feeding sorghum to ducks? We have a bit of land (two acres or so) and I'm trying out various crops... Hull-less "naked" oats turned out very well for both people and animals, then last year we had black oil sunflowers which are being used right now to tide the ducks over the winter, and for 2024 I wanted to try grain sorghum. As I understand it it has a good dietary composition, it's a good quality food and even good for people with celiac / gluten problems, I just don't know how tasty it is to ducks.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Wow, what a bunch... My four female 'regular' ducks are loud enough, I don't know if I could stand that cacophony!

And yeah, I saw that video from Mr Y'all. I'm hoping for the early-ish Spring here. If what he says is true (cold at the end of the month, then milder) I will take it. As long as cold doesn't mean me freezing again.

Well, according to the dux it is already spring time. They shed their feathers, are loud and a lot of ducking is going on. The only thing they forgot is laying eggs!
But what you call a cacophony is music in my ears.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Good thing you have her contained or she may have been right in the orgy. lol

She almost undid this today: After the rain stopped, i waded through the mud to unhook the duck-run door - greeted with angry quacks "Why didn't you let us out in the rain?". Then i hooked the patio-door open and tried to grab Blanca to put her into the duxling box. Being Blanca and absolutely self(ish)-sufficient she flew up and out off the door. Landed on her belly in the deepest mud and was greeted by not one, not two but three cork-screw bearing warriors who all grabbed her neck. Obviously they missed her very much…
So the princess generously allowed me to save her and set her in her sovereign chamber.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

She does look like she is improving well and it is good that she is not being mated right now as the extra weight would not be good on her foot. She looks great!

Still a mixed bag: If she takes her time and walks slowly her foot stays right side up. But with the slightest disturbance it flips and she walks on the top-side of her foot.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Anybody here feeding sorghum to ducks? We have a bit of land (two acres or so) and I'm trying out various crops... Hull-less "naked" oats turned out very well for both people and animals, then last year we had black oil sunflowers which are being used right now to tide the ducks over the winter, and for 2024 I wanted to try grain sorghum. As I understand it it has a good dietary composition, it's a good quality food and even good for people with celiac / gluten problems, I just don't know how tasty it is to ducks.

Unintentionally i grew Sorghum and Amaranth in quantities last year: Those are a huge part of winter-feed for song-birds here in the U.S. and those birbs are messy eaters, so i ended up with Sorghum (aka. Millet) and Amaranth everywhere. These plants grow incredibly fast to heights of way over 2 meters (6½'), out-compete everything - even potatoes - and cast shadows on whatever you want to grow.
I want to make the best out of it and tried to harvest some bird-feed, but there were two obstacles: The wild birds who ate most of the grains before they were even fully dry and the plants themselves. You have to thrash them really hard before they release their seeds and then you spread these seeds all over the place. And pray that no strong gust of wind comes your way as these seeds are tiny.
Unless you really want to be serious with these plants, growing them in large scale (bird losses!) and have the right equipment to harvest, choose something else.