Thread formerly known as Hatch day is today

[Chicken Crazy12]

 

[70%cocoa]

By the way, Cocoa, it meant a lot to me to have you reading and posting replies at 3am when I was going through the crisis. I haven't yet said thank you. So, thank you.

ETA: I also want to thank Celtic and QJ for their help. Without them, I would not have known how to help my wrong way ancona baby.

You are very welcome.

 

[Goin Quackrrs]

Anyone use Purina duck grower? I was thinking about switching over to that. We don't really have a problem with angel wing around here and most of our ducks are raised on purina flock raiser, but I was thinking about switching to the grower since I found it in a feed store nearby.

I didn't know they made a duck grower. Guess Del's doesn't carry it.

Corn is bad for waterfowl. It causes weight gain and they pack weight on around the reproductive organs and can lower fertility greatly. Horse sweet feed has a high corn count and molasses. Molasses acts as a laxative and I would stay away from it with poultry and waterfowl. Oats, millet, and boss would help stretch the feed and add more nutrition.

I'm trying to get my girls away from corn as much as possible. Not only is it bad for them, but most corn in this country is GMO now and I wouldn't eat it, so why should I make them eat it?

I personally think that my birds look better with Sunshine, fresh air, grass and bugs then with any feed formula, but that's just my opinion and I do not mean it as a troll.

I agree completely. We have to closely supervise our ducks when they free range. The eagle's nest in the back yard has really made it hard to leave them to their own devices. I'm working on hatching a couple geese to be predator alarms.

EXACTLY 10 days until i have wittle tiny munchkins again . i cant wait!!!! this time im keeping some of them!!! (no ifs ands or buts about it)
and by the end of the week i will have eggies in the bator again. =) im going crazy with it empty.
goot 2 eggs first thing today so maybe today will be the day i get 4 eggs,
oh and i have 3 orders (local) for eggs.
so as long as people are patient i will be filling them soon

Hooray for new babies. I'm so impatient for my next batch... which is just about totally sold already. Dangit. I keep wanting to cut off the waiting list for a while, but hubby insists in case someone backs out. Dangit, I really want to take my keepers out of this batch.

Good morning, all!!! I am pleased to introduce to you babies #8 & #9: the wrong way baby I hatched from inside out and my sweet silver apple. Amazingly, they are both doing well!!



CG, thanks for the paper towel tip. It really helped!

Awww.

I'm also getting a goose to train with my ducks.... a big goose.... everyone knows what big geese are good for.... (*evil laugh*) Just let them try something!

*ahem*


Emily

I've found that geese are a good alarm, but not necessarily a protector. You have to get the ducks trained to take cover when the goose sounds the alarm.

Celtic, thankfully I got a great night sleep last night. Once the silver apple was out of shell (by 1am), hubby took over watching hatchlings and I went to bed. Hopefully, I'll get one more good night's sleep before the stress starts x2 with my toulouse babies hatching!

Glad you got some rest!

Well I can't thank you and everyone enough!!! I proudly present "Iain" and "Utah"... if you don't mind have two ducks named after you. Truly you helped more than you will ever know. I know it is a round world so I can't wait to do the same for someone else... when I get more experience! And here is their buddy cheering them on so they can come play.

Congrats on the new babies! First hatch is stressful, isn't it? Trust me, you'll be much more confident next time. However, we're all here in case a new situation occurs. None of us has seen it all, but having a place to ask questions makes us all more successful!

They told me that ducks don't start laying untill the end of March!

Yeah and pigs can fly too right....... I guess they don't realize that I'm pretty big into the Anconas and um sorry but these guys can outlay any chicken anyday.

I don't want to pee them off, but it's about time they start getting a projected ship date for me.

That's ridiculous. BTW, I need to candle those eggs we got from you. Can't wait for little penciled runner babies!

 

[70%cocoa]

We're going to hold off on the cake until the weekend I think. Hubby decided that it wasn't an appropriate child's birthday cake. This coming from a man who LOOOOOOVES a good pineapple or peach upside down cake.

That is a laugh and a half. Not appropriate as a child's birthday cake. LMAO x 1000. It's not as if you were planning on decorating it with....oh I don't know.....pee pees or something.

I hope you still get to make it on the weekend though. It's yum.

 

[Chicken Crazy12]

Well, I'm almost done with todays hatching! Got 8 olive eggers (Already put them on CL) 3 Ameraucanas (2 of wich are an awesome project color

) the other a blue like my roo.

1 lonely splash cochin 2 more eggs left to go of those so hopefully he will get a buddy to grow up with otherwise he's gonna be the odd chick out since till he's old enough to go with the rest of the bantam chicks growing out.

Waiting on those two eggs then I can hurry and clean the bator and move the duck eggs and the SQ blue cochin and Blue mottled cochin eggs over to hatch on Friday. I let my humidity really drop while the ducks were incubating so I'm not sure how the hatch will go for them.

 

[Chicken Crazy12]

That's ridiculous. BTW, I need to candle those eggs we got from you. Can't wait for little penciled runner babies!

I'm getting ready to move 5 over to the hatching incubator! Humidity went way low on me durring incubation, fingers crossed for a good hatch but I'm worried especially after utah had all those shrink wrapped babies. Eeeeek I should have paid more attention

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Ok Iain, posted the pictorial for you in a new thread.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...how-we-wrap-to-mend-it-pictorial#post_8682154

 

[Goin Quackrrs]

I use a towel, becuz it gives traction for their legs, when they are just getting them underneath them, Holds heat & it absorbs moisture (ie the wonderful stuff that also comes out of the egg)

YEAH for hummingbirds!!!! Spring is here or near

I've been using dollar store kitchen towels. I need to go get a bag o'rags from the Goodwill, but they're always out.

Here are my first 7 babies this morning. I am happily surprised I hatched more colors than b/w and that all are so healthy!!

EE chicks. I'm loving the first one with that big fluffy beard and muffs.

She might be staying, as long as she is a she.

Chickens getting some sun.

The goslings are huge and barely look like goslings. Think they are about the size of my turkey. They sleep with and hang out with the ducks most the day, but have began going off grazing on their own too.

​

Here is a pic of my youngsters. 1 of these is 3 months old and the others are all 2 months. I'm really happy with the way the markings are coming along on these guys. My breeding goals are more to the lighter marked ducks with lots and lots of spots vs the heavy marked ducks with large patches of color. I still have some little things to correct with this generation, but I'm getting closer to my breeding goals.​

Great, great pictures everyone. Love seeing everyone's extended families. We had this guy show up about a week ago and luckily only came around a few times. We had a few catfish die in the pond and he was around when the vultures went after the dead catfish but didn't challenge any of them. I was so worried about our ducks but he didn't pay them any attention. In case you are wondering... I keep a cast net over the ducklings pen when they start going out during the day... don't worry.

Wow, that looks like the view from the entrance to my duck run. Like I said, I've got a pair nesting there and I always see them in the mornings, waiting till I let the ducks out so they can stare at them through the fence.

Beautiful photograph of a beautiful bird!

Duct tape on a duck,lol that would be cute!!!!!!

I've used duct tape over vetwrap for a duck who kept getting out of her bandage.


Ok, so the photo shows medical tape, but when I ran out of that, I used tie-dye colored duct tape.

 

[Goin Quackrrs]

I just received my latest shipment of eggs.... 14 saxonies and 10 silver apples. I don't know if I am

or if I look more like this:

I think I looked like this the last time my boss handed me more eggs:

I love hatching, but I really don't want to ever have two over capacity bators at the same time ever again!

Ok here it goes.
Regular wing

Angel wing (note this duckling had its wing turned out for the photo & does not have AW)

Tucking wing tip

Starting the wrap

Around the body

I like to figure 8 around the body and tail leaving the legs free

Great tutorial!

There's no nomination for The most idiotic, beachy, sassy, funny, or pi$$y !!!! CRAP then I have no chance

WHOOPS!!!!!!!!!! Clearly I did that totally wrong... as it is already off! 2nd attempt at wrapping coming up!

Ducks are slippery little critters. It's like they're covered in butter because they get out of any bandage you can put them in. When I was having to wrap Clumsy's leg, I'd spend 45 minutes getting the darn thing on and a couple hours later have to redo it.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Building a new open air coop/pen set this week for the Cluckers. 8' tall 24' long each, then one is 14' wide and the others 12' wide. Plowed through 12 holes and setting of posts tonight, will finish the other holes/posts to or row and begin attaching wire and walls. Then the coop official gets scrubbed, stalls built inside and becomes a perm goose house.