Ducks

[Myrkk]

Duck eggs have arrived ready to pop in the incubator. Very nervous as never incubated eggs manually, our barbu d’uccles always took care of it au naturel.

Been playing with the incubator for last week and got temp, turning and timing right but can’t get the humidity right as of yet. Eggs need to go in tomorrow so fingers crossed I get it right tonight.

Didn’t realise UK duck breeds are all endangered, makes sense as not seen many on the rivers in recent years.

Fingers crossed

[Westi]

I didn't realise all UK duck breeds are endangered; that needs to be highlighted more as I think if folk were aware they would consider keeping more at home.

[Myrkk]

https://www.rbst.org.uk/Pages/Category/ducks-watchlist

I didn’t realise this either until I started looking for some feathered friends for the back garden. I can’t have a cockerel as one of our neighbours has taken a dislike to us immediately upon us moving in to the new house and I don’t want to give them any ammo. However, I like the idea of being able to have youngsters and basically breed my own replacements hence I thought about ducks. They don’t dig the garden up scratching like hens and are relatively quiet. But when I started researching what breed to get I was shocked. This made me think about how few ducks I see on waterways when out and about nowadays. Such a shame as they are little characters.

We’ve had to buy eggs from way down south to hatch out as very few people seem to be breeding ducks. We went for silver appleyard (LB) as they’re supposed to be super friendly. Looking forward to having some little ducklings wandering around but they grow much faster than hens seemingly and are pretty grown up by 2mths.

[Primrose]

I wonder if the earlier Avian flu crisis, forcing breeders to keep their birds under cover for quite a while, may have forced some potential poultry owners
to have second thoughts about keeping them. Nobody can enjoy having to keep their birds shut up when they're used to roaming freely

[Westi]

You also have to report the number of ducks/hens you have at home now, not just commercial breeders. An e-mail came from our site FB page. I did pass this info on to my neighbours without IT but whether they did I don't know & I haven't heard of any inspections or the like.

[Myrkk]

Well of the 6 eggs, 2 were infertile, 2 didn’t manage to complete hatching and 2 hatched. We’ve called them Crimson & Clover although I have no idea what sex they are, anything bar 2 drakes would be great.

They are such characters, who knew duck zoomies was a thing, they kick up like bunnies and run around the room then nestle down beside you. Having said that they’ve taken a shine to my hubbie and will just jump on him and fall asleep, with me they disappear into my hair and bite my neck.

Can heartily recommend them so far.

[Primrose]

How delightful!. Let's hope they turn out to be layers. Just enjoy them while you can. They grow up so quickly.

[Myrkk]

I was surprised at how quickly ducks grow Primrose. Mostly full sized in a couple of months.

They do currently sound like squeaky toys though which is driving the dogs and cats nuts.

[Primrose]

Well at least your cats don't seem to regard them as fair game to chase and kill!
Our previous cat was a keen fisherman. Raided a local pool somewhere in the neighbourhood and returned home with a massive Iive. koi carp in his mouth. We had to fill the bath with water quickly to try and keep it alive but overnight the fluoride in the water probably killed it. Never did discover where it came from! Doubt this cat would have been very friendly to ducklings but perhaps it,s different if they,re reared with them from birth.?

[Westi]

So cute when little! Fingers crossed they are female, but methinks you will just love them regardless & they will be part of the family!

[Myrkk]

OMG Primrose. I’ll bet your kitty was disappointed to not get a good meal after all that hard work. It’s amazing what they’ll bring home, a friends kitty brought an adult rat in then let it go. Her 6’4” boyfriend screamed and jumped on the coffee table, she never looked at him the same way again.

I’m allowing our kitties to be curious but not get too close. It’s our blind collie that is causing the most issues, he is fascinated and gets wound up by the squeaky noises they make. Hopefully as adults they nip him a couple of times and he’ll become wary.

[retropants]

How lovely Myrkk! I've toyed with the idea, but not in our current home. How do they fare in the garden, do you know? My mum says they will eat everything, other sources say they'll just eat the slugs??

[Myrkk]

They’re actually more garden friendly than chickens, or so I’m reliably told by some duck owners. They tend not to eat the veg patch and flower bed but graze the grass.
Slugs make up a small part of their diet but from what I gather they can’t eat too many so I will wait and see. At 2wks old they are already around 10 times the size of the little cuties in that pic above. I’ll try and upload a video to utube and link it here. They had their first swim in the bath yesterday and OMG, one of them was zipping about under the water.