White layer ducks from Metzer

[MerryMeridional]

Does anyone have White Layers from Metzer?

I got our flock started with 5 female runner/cayuga mixes (sold to me as black runners but except for one runner-y looking one, they look like mini cayugas) from Ideal Poultry in the spring. They are hilarious and so much fun. They are shaping up to be good layers, too.....but more is better, right?
Duck math is striking.... I want to expand. I find all the traits of my ducks endearing but one thing I don't want to do is annoy the neighbors.

Usually in the morning before being fed or in the afternoon before getting dinner they tend to pipe up fairly loud. Due to the location of their run, you can hear them from the street, and I'm sure my neighbors in the cul-de-sac behind me can hear them as well. I have had zero complaints but my neighbors across the street who I am friends with has mentioned that they can hear the ducks. She says they do not bother her but she hears them. We have great weather here and she is one to leave all her windows and doors open. Her bedroom window faces the street so she hears them more than us!

I am trying to figure out if I have particularly loud ducks or not. I am wondering how loud White Layers typically are. I've heard cayugas are a bit noisy so maybe mine are louder than average? Luckily they aren't constantly noisy, mostly just before mealtimes.

I think I have room for 8-10 ducks total. I might even get a drake and start cultivating my own special flock..... but I have to be sure this won't become a problem first.

Any opinions welcome!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I can't remember where @WannaBeHillBilly got his white layers from maybe he'll see this tag and respond.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Miss Lydia is right, i have four White Layer ducks from Metzer farms and they are the most relaxed birds of my whole flock. - Except for meal-worm or cat-food situations.
As teenage ducks they were loud and talkative like all teenagers, but did not had the shriek voices of my Magpie ducks. Now they have a really deep QUACK which one immediately associates with a large white duck - thank's to that Aflac commercials.
A list of my duck breeds, ordered from noisy to quiet:

• Magpie Ducks - can be annoyingly loud and are very persistent quackers when they got scared.
• Buff Orpington Ducks - always quietly chatting with themselves and with the rest of the flock
• Indian Runners - usually silent but will raise their voices when necessary
• White Layers - calm, quiet and docile ducks. But don't stand between them and something yummy to eat, they are always hungry.

From my point of view, the White Layers are very nice ducks, funny and goofy as the Pekin, but without the leg and hip problems that Pekins will sooner or later develop. And they are very good layers of large white eggs.
I have an album for my white layers with some pictures and a video, if you want to watch: White Layers

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Forgot to mention: Hook your neighbors on tasty duck-eggs and they will forgive your ducks a lot of quacking!

 

[MerryMeridional]

@WannaBeHillBilly thank you for the detailed response. That is great news for me and I feel a bit more confident expanding the flock. Are you getting 1 egg a day reliably from the white layers?

The crested magpie duck in your video is hilarious! She looks like she has a mohawk. Rockin'.

I remember from some other thread seeing you share that picture of the ducks in their feeding area with one passed out in the feed. Funny but pitiful.That poor girl. She just doesn't have an off button does she?

I have definitely been giving eggs to the neighbors. Unfortunately the girls are molting and the days are getting shorter so the egg production has dropped off quite a bit. I have about 20 left on the kitchen table but didn't get any new eggs today or yesterday. I've given eggs to 3 neighbors and have one more specific neighbor behind me in the cul-de-sac who I want to attempt to woo. Apparently this lady leaves notes in mailboxes with complaints, like about dogs barking or landscaping issues. I haven't gotten a note yet.... I'm not sure if giving her eggs would put me on her radar or win her over

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I have the White Layers since February this year and they have started to lay in June with some small pee-wee eggs first, but the quickly increased the egg size to super-Jumbo, i have some eggs weighing in at over 100 grams (>3.5oz) and yes, they are laying one egg a day reliably so far. Don't know during Winter yet and i am not planning to use artificial light. If my ducks stop to lay, they stop. A break is good for them we have enough eggs and they don't sell here in WV.
The crested Magpie duck is named PomPom, her crest looks like a pop-pom and she is one of my very vocal ducks.
Blanca is a bit like me, i to have need something to drink at all time or i get nervous, she needs to have access to the pellets or she freaks out. I withdrew their access to the feeder for one day, after my ducks ate too many grasshoppers and she was complaining at the duck-house door the whole time. In the evening then she was so obsessed with the pellets and the feeder that she fell asleep with her head inside the pellets. She must have had the sweetest dreams that night… She is some kind of a food-addict, always first when i hand out treats, but she is also a really sweet girl. My young ducklings quickly adopted her as a second mama duck and she was somewhat overwhelmed because she is so big and the ducklings were so small, she was carefully looking where she sat her foot down to not hit one of the babies. The younglings still hang out with her a lot.
Neighbors! If she likes eggs you will never hear a complain from her. also tell her that ducks are great in keeping the insect population at bey, eating ticks, mosquitoes and gnats. That may help to win her over.

 

[backyardbirds394]

I have 6 white layers too! They are loud as teenagers, more so than mallards, but were never a noise complaint. They only quack when food is around.

 

[MerryMeridional]

@WannaBeHillBilly Wow your girls got their egg sizes up fast! Ours shipped out to us March 19 (so around a month later than yours). Except for a double yolk in their first laying that was 72g, the biggest I've weighed was a 63g egg (XL), but all the others topped out at a large egg size. I'm sure they will be bigger next season but for now due to molting and seasonal light and weather changes, I'm not getting eggs. I'm with you... at least for now.... about the light thing. I think a rest for their bodies is good. I'll give them the most nutritious food I can and supplement calcium but if they aren't laying, they aren't laying. I would need to do some serious reading on the subject to be comfortable forcing them to lay longer.

So, speaking of nutritious food. Can you talk about feeding them dry cat food? I've seen a few people on here mention feeding their duckies dry cat food and it always made me go ??? . Is it a treat or is it a more well rounded food item for a duck? Do you only buy certain brands or look for certain nutrition ratios or vitamins things on the bag?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

All of my ducks went through the phases of laying small eggs, double and even triple-yolkers to finally laying "normal" eggs. Now the eggs are just getting larger and larger.
Duck-Food: Our ducks have a large fenced-in area around our house, which they use as their main food source during the day. They cut the grass for me, trample the weeds and eat all kinds of pesky insects. Last year there were countless ticks in the grass, this year almost none and even the stink-bug population is hit hard.
Other than that, they have 24x7 access to their "less-waste" feeder with the meat-bird pellets, during the day only Blanca and Earthquack frequently go inside and grab a bite or ten…
In the morning, after i let them out of their house, they get some meal-worms and/or cat-food as a treat and when they all go to bed i lure them inside with their »supper-bowl«, a bowl with some greens (dandelion leaves, salad, veggie scraps, (red) kale, whatever is at hand) garnished with some meal-worms and cat food treats.

I buy the pellets from a local feed-mill here in the area and i honestly haven't paid much attention to what it is made of. That mill is a 3rd generation family owned business and they are feeding their products to their own chickens, so i assume they know what they're doing.
Cat food, i buy whenever we're buying groceries for us and i usually buy the cheap store brand. I started to use the cat-food as a cheaper alternative to the expensive meal-worms and it turned out they like the cat food a bit better than the worms.
They also have access to crushed oyster-shells and eggs-shells 24x7 and again if i buy oyster-shells i take the cheapest store brand.
Additional vitamins? - Only when they are sick and in deep winter when i add some Vitamin C to their drinking water.
I consider myself lucky that i have enough land around the house for them to forage, that should cover most of their nutritional needs perfectly.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Important: I forgot to mention that i avoid to buy cat-foot containing sea-food, i always go for the chicken-flavor. Feeding too much sea-food may leads to a fishy taste in the eggs.