I have two questions about my ducks.....
I did a head count the other day - and I'm missing one of my females....a Khaki Campbell....they're outside most of the time....but I haven't had any predators all winter. Could she be hiding somewhere with eggs? or is it more likely she's just gone? This is my first spring with ducks.....
Second questions - do ducks normally eat fish?? lol I didn't think they did....but I watched one of my golden cascades down what looked to be a small baby bass! lol Anyways....just curious...:)
Thanks all!!
2 Questions about Ducks.....
It is possible that she is on a nest, I know we have some geese at my job and one of them has a small clutch started. It seems a little early but sometimes hens jump the gun and get right to business. It will take here close to thirty days to hatch them and bring them around. If she doesn't show within that months time you can probably assume her as gone. Yes, I have had a lot of problems with my call ducks getting in my gold fish pond and eating the koi.
yeppers, i am fresh out of goldfish and koi!
our duck is nesting too!
I just found a nesting area in my flower box....(that isn't blooming yet....still looks dead....I hate Michigan!) lol....ANYWAYS! :) Is there a way to "make" a nesting box for them outside so they don't use my flowerboxes or am I just stuck with their decision??
I was thinking about putting the bottom half of a dog house out there filled with some dirt or something.....What do you think?
Some hens you can move and some you can't. If you don't want her in there and she won't move to where you put a box don't worry, she will just go on and find a new place. It is rather hard to get ducks to lay in one certain place like chickens. They perfer to find places where they feel secure. If there are eggs in your flowerbed I would put them in whatever it is that you are wanting her to nest in. Put it in a safe and secure location perferably near or under something for cover such as a tree or bush.
I've never had much luck in moving eggs or getting my ducks to nest where I want them to. Right now one is setting in the fawn pen and the other is laying in there, even though she started a nest elsewhere right where I wanted her. I made the mistake of removing all but two of her eggs from the first nest, trying to get her to lay a fresh batch (it was too cold for the first). So hopefully, they will all be hatched by the time fawns come in.
The one duck is sharing the nest with my red silkie. No silkie eggs, just duck eggs. They face diffrent direstions and refuse to look at or acknowledge each other. Pretty funny to watch.
Yes they do eat small fish and POLLYWOGS. Unfortunately three-dollar-a-piece-bullfrog-pollywogs. I found out the hard way.
lol Oh great....so not much luck then! lol
My only females are Pekins, Golden Cascades, and a Rouen....my Khaki Campbell went missing....but I'm wondering if she's nesting somewhere.....but kinda doubt it.
I don't think any of my ducks are the "nesting" type are they??? I've been considering putting a few under my mom's broody chicken at her house (think she'd notice?) It would be quite fun to give the ducklings back to their momma and see what happens.....lol
I've never had a duck of any kind that wouldn't nest. My guess is that your missing duck is on a nest somewhere. They are really good at hiding them. We had one under a brush pile in the fire pit (thank goodness we found it before we burned). Annother was under the smoke house. Last year my aconna hid hers under a bush so well yhat I didn't find it till just before it hatched. My rouen hid hers under the back steps. They are pretty creative and some start nesting early.
My aconna has about 14 eggs under her and the silkie.
Now, if I could just find the turkey eggs before the egg sucking beagle does....
I wonder.......some of my ducks keep peeking under my back porch.....I think I might check to see if she's under there.....hmmmmmmmm........but wouldn't I see her at some point for her to eat??
They sneak in and out pretty fast, the nest under the brushpile was there for about two weeks before we saw her come out and it's right out the back door. We thought something had gotten her too. So there is still hope.
We have 2 wild ducks nesting in our back yard. Last year we had a total of 10.
I've got a question to pose: Do ducks need a deep water source(more than 2 feet) in order to mate and have it take? We don't have a pond and last year two of my Khaki Campbells nested with no results.
Nope. I have a plastic wadeing pool and get ducks. Half the time my Quackers doesn't even let them get to the water.
Jean, You were asking if your ducks were the setting type. Like someone pointed out above, most if not all ducks will set, but you have the top three that have done very well at setting for me. Perkins and Rouens are great setters, and the Kahkis are pretty broody as well. When it comes to putting duck eggs under a chicken, she'll never know the difference. I have hatched everything from quail eggs under bantam hens, to turkey and peacock eggs under chickens. I tell you the funniest thing is putting quail or bantam eggs under the pigeon hens. You should see the way the pigeons act when their babies jump out of the nest within an hour or so, and those poor babies when the pigeons are trying to feed them. I try to get them out real quick but sometimes I don't get to them for a while if I'm at work.
I have a friend who keeps her hens setting. As the babies hatch she takes them out and puts more eggs under them. She may have chickens, guineas, and even a turkey and or duck eggs all under there at one time. I've seen her hatch three or fout clutches from one setting hen. I personally think that is kinda mean, but once they become broody they will set for a long time on anything. Sorry for the novel guys!
That's awesome! I may just leave the egg in the next for a day or so to see if whomever is laying it will sit.....hmmmm.....I'm definitely, though planning on putting some eggs under my mom's chicken! :) Here's a question though....how quickly after it's laid do I need to get it under the chicken? It's still cold over night...and when I go get the eggs first thing in the morning (7:30am) they're pretty darn cold! lol
If it is below freezing it won't survive. Forty is really as cold as it should get but you never really know for sure. Someone else my know the exact temp, but i've had luck with eggs that stayed out on pretty cold nites. My pigeons and doves lay and hatch all year around. They do stand over the eggs a lot of the time but aren't actually sitting.
Our lowest right now is 388-40 degrees.....hmmm.......
Close call, you could always take them in at night and place them in the morning. It is a lot of work but if it will positive results it could be worth it. You don't have to collect and replace all just put a couple in of a morning. You could also mark a couple and just leave them and collect the rest. I've even used store bought chicken eggs for dummies and collected the fresh ones. When she starts to nest you can change them out. Make sure you turn the ones you collect until you put them back in the nest for her until she starts setting.
I'm hoping that this is just "not enough sleep and early in the morning" talking....but I don't understand! lol Take "who" or "what" in?? huh??? :) Sorry! lol
The eggs, if it is below freezing or anywhere real close you can take the eggs in a night and replace them (or a couple of them) of a morning to keep her laying. You can also use store bought eggs for dummies, giving it doesn't matter if they freeze, or Set aside a few of her own to leave out all the time and just collect the fresher ones to keep them from freezing. Once she goes broody you can put all of the eggs back under her. Make sure you turn them just as if they were in a incubator.
So ducks don't go broody until they have a bunch of eggs laid?
I have had ducks set on anywhere from 3 to 16 eggs.
Mine usually set when they have a dozen or more.
Love all the info! Is 1 drake enough for 7 ducks? Or would the fertility be too low?
☺sue
I would run two but one might be enough.
One of the ducks in our yard is setting on 20 eggs. I haven't been able to count the others yet. I am worried for the clutch with 20 eggs. There is some runoff from the gutter where she has decided to nest and the eggs have gotten wet twice. I hope she has been able to keep them warm enough in spite of the water.
She should, remember she is a duck and their eggs do get wet. If there is anything you can do to block or redirect the water around her that wouldn't be a bad idea.
I've been trying to think of something that would not disturb her too much.
If the water runs on the ground into the nest, get a couple of packs of tube sand and make a low wall behind the nest to redirect the flow. If it is running down on her, make an A frame from a couple pieces of plywood or something and put it over her. I just cleaned all the straw out of the pen around my nesting duck and she never moved off the nest. You will know pretty quick if it disturbs her, but if you do it while she is sitting, she probably won't even move and when she does, she will have forgotten it was not there before.
Whatever I do will have to be done when she is off the nest. She is a wild mallard that lives in the creek in our backyard.
Is she a wild Mallard or "Wild"? Is she a domesticated "Flying" Mallard? If she is the domesticated type of wild Mallard I would help her the best you could, if she is completly a wild duck that just happens to live at your house I would let her go. We have a wild pair of geese that nests on our pond every year and you would be suprised by the things some of those babies have made it through. The real wild ones have adaptaitons to survie the impossible.
They are wild ducks but they don't migrate in the winter. They collect tidbits from different people along the creek and they do well. They are kind of like the town mascots. LOL
We are going to have to do something about the number of drakes this year or we won't have any hens left. Every time a hen leaves the nest she is badgered by 5 or 6 drakes all trying to breed. This went on all last season and several of them were killed when they went into the road trying to get away from the drakes. The wildlife agent has given us permission to thin the number of drakes. Hopefully that will help with the hatching and survival numbers of the ducklings. Very few made it last year.
So....I have two nests now.....of which I've been taking the eggs out of. Now, I tried putting all the eggs from the morning into one nest....and my dog ate them all. My fault completely since she's on a raw diet and I give her a raw egg now and then. Any ideas on how to get her from eating them?? I'm thinking about coating some with extremely bitter stuff (like bitter apple) or something....do you think that'd work? I'd like to try and give my ducks an option to lay/nest if they want! :)
Here is a picture of the nest with 20 eggs.
My X husband once drilled a small hole in the eggs and injected tabasco sauce
Broke that dog from being a egg eatter.......
That'd do for me too! lol!
You have my sympathy. I too have an egg sucking dog. The worst part of it is that she brings them in the living room to eat them. I sprinkled cyanne pepper and regular around the nests. Since they usually start sniffing around before they take the eggs, they get a good snoot full. It dosent seem to bother the turkey, duck or chickens. I tried tobasco in the house for my retriever (who would never think of taking eggs from anywhere but the bowl on the counter). That combined with mousetraps did the trick, but I used one of the eggs and it had seeped through the shell. So it probably wouldn't work on one to hatch (that would be one HOT chick!)
The other thing you can do is try to make a barrier around the nest that the duck can slip through and the dog can't. I use pieces of hog pannel.
Sigh, my yard looks so strange.
Wow, I never thought of some of those ideas. I always thought once a dog started sucking eggs you were just stuck with the problem. I bet the tabasco sauce would do it.