(Weird) Winter Moments 2019

[Runner duck mom]

Never had so much snow here in WV - ok, that is my second winter here…
Beautiful ducks!!!

Thank you, back when we only had 2 ducks We've been in GA for 6 years now and no winter has been the same. Huge ice storm that shut down everything the first year and some years no snow at all.

I was draining the duck-pool yesterday and the hose-inlet clogged with a ball of feathers, so i had to reach into the water… -it felt like my hand was cut off!
No problems for the Duckies! They enjoy their pool even when there's ice swimming in the water. My feet would likely fall off…

Lol, seems like there is always an issue with the pool drain when it's freezing cold or pouring rain. I feel for everyone in the colder states. Lived in NY all my life and I don't know if keeping ducks would have crossed my mind living there. Winters are cold, dark and snowy.

Muscovy/mallard mix?
Agree! @Runner duck mom where did you go a square kiddie pool?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HJGTLVW/?tag=backy-20
The pool was awesome for the ducks, if you order online in the winter they are super cheap. Big enough for them to dive and swim circles under water (well, for our little runners anyway). But the drain is small so it takes a long time to drain, like 80 or 90 gallons.

 

[thumper650]

Yup! You need to have a generator! We had an outage last week for 19 hours and without a generator our heater won't work, and we don't have a fireplace in the house.

Yup our heat require electricity too. It’s annoying because it’s a steam heat system that could run off a car battery for a while, but I’m not tech savvy enough to do it.

 

[FluffTheDuck]

Do you get any snow in Alabama? - I thought you're more of a tropical storm state?

I don’t even know! At least for the past 3 years it hasn’t snowed.yeah Alabama gets tropical storms often! I don’t know why we aren’t getting snow

 

[Thunderduck9]

 

[Mimi13]

I don’t know why we aren’t getting snow

Oh lord, bite your tongue. We’ll get a foot or more now.

Just kidding. It does snow here (at such random times) and usually creates such chaos.

 

[Mimi13]

Hi Friends,

i was planning to create this thread at the beginning of last week, but life threw some curveballs at me and i just didn't had the serenity, but better late than never; here we go:
We had our first real cold snap on Tuesday night here in West Virginia, had the first snow on the ground in the morning and that was a new experience for most of my ducks. The Spring Ducklings very likely were too young to remember the winter-weather they experienced this spring and for the unplanned Summer Ducklings it was definitely a new experience.

It was also a new experience for the Duckies humon servants, we went from 19°(67F ) on Monday afternoon down to -10°(19F) on Wednesday morning, almost skipping autumn entirely, offering weird opportunities, like a creative new method for storing kitchen towels:

The Duckies left their footprints in the snow:

They got confused about their feet feeling cold, but insisted in eating their cat-food breakfast out of my hands:

(I hate when the door to the duck-house freezes shut!!!)
If you have pictures and videos of your duck's winter and snow experiences, please share!

Oh, @WannaBeHillBilly, I LOVED this post.

First the little foot prints - adorbs!

Then, the video showing the over anxious duckies waiting patiently only then to flee the coop!

And lastly, I didn’t know that ducks had a vacuum system inside them! What? Where? Wuh? Their treats instantly disappeared inside their bills. Lord help me. It was so funny.

I needed to see this tonight.

I do have one question though. I am duck dumb, but I’m curious. The duck with orange legs and feet with the extreme upright stance. Is that one a female and could she either be egg bound or hurt in some other way, OR is that a normal stance and way of walking for her/his breed. I find these ducks so fascinating.

Thank you for sharing this bit of sunshine in a cold and snowy way.

 

[FluffTheDuck]

I do have one question though. I am duck dumb, but I’m curious. The duck with orange legs and feet with the extreme upright stance. Is that one a female and could she either be egg bound or hurt in some other way, OR is that a normal stance and way of walking for her/his breed. I find these ducks so fascinating.

That breed is called the Indian runner duck! There are fawn and white, chocolate, black, and other types of Indian runners!
That's not dumb question! Never, ever stop learning!

 

[Mimi13]

That breed is called the Indian runner duck! There are fawn and white, chocolate, black, and other types of Indian runners!
That's not dumb question! Never, ever stop learning!

Thank you fellow Alabamian!

 

[FluffTheDuck]

Thank you fellow Alabamian!

Yep! Anytime. That's what BYC is for, right?!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Thank you very much for the kudos @Mimi13 - Yes it seems that many of my ducks do have a built-in vacuum and Blanca duck (the large white one) has a powerful shop-vac inside. That girl can eat! She was the only duck that did not have any stomach problems after the grasshopper incident this year and she is alway hungry.
For being »duck dumb« - you are clearly not! Curious minds are definitely not dumb, equally true for human and non-human minds!
The duck with the orange legs and the upright stand is my drake »Limpy«, a Fawn and White Indian Runner. He most likely had a botulism infection last year that left him with a limp on his right leg but, being a fighter he is still performing all his drake duties.
For the bright orange legs: I started to feed my ducks red cabbage each evening to improve the color of the egg yolks (it works!) and he is a big fan of it. As drakes don't lay eggs, all those carotenoids have ended up in his bill and his legs, causing this bright color. Some other ducks got those too.