baby updates.....

first surprise we had was yesterday afternoon when one of the guinea eggs we had in the incubator started cracking & hatching.....this was late in the day on day 29, so i'd pretty much given up....this morning there was another & now there are 3.....i'd say less than 1/2 of the 25 eggs were fertile and maybe 10 looked like anything was going on when i checked sat, so i'm stunned!

i just ordered 20 keets from meyers yesterday for late june delivery.....we have 10 acres, so everyone will have ticks-a-plenty!

our teenaged ducklings and goslings are doing great....have all 5 of the geese, both runner ducks, both magpies and 3 out of 4 of the snowy mallards....one female (not even the one who is still tiny) was crushed
the goslings are very cuddly as we decided to handle them a lot more

our incubator ducklings...5....found a new home on 11 acres with an acre-sized lake
the gosling has become a dog and is currently named shadow....will actually be going the diaper route with this one

our toulouse geese still have 2 goslings under thier care
the tiniest one and another one we took in both died
(giving away the ducklings & losing these two goslings sealed shadows fate as he/she has no buddies his size)

one of our ducks had 4 ducklings (i have 3 inside)
another had 6 (i have 5 inside)
one is due any day & i think that's it for awhile with them

our chicks arrive tomorrow......26 :-)
the keets...ship on 30 june :-)

sand creek order will probably be canceled as it was originally due on the 8th of april and if not here tomorrow i'm going to cancel
i understood their timing issues & didn't think it would make a difference until it ran into other babies that will need to be kept in the house.....i hope they show up as i had two sebastopol geese in the order....everything else was ordered to meet the min, not that we wouldn't love them anyway!

here's the first keet

here are some of the teenagers.....

more....

more

rounding up for now....

the first ducks are the runner ducks and a magpie duck


then a pair of brown chinese geese....you can see blue on the wings on the female in the back

the two male snowy mallards...one is getting white and the other seems to have a rust color coming in

the last ones are dan, the roman tufted male, in front w/cinderella the white chinese female right behind
& jane, the female roman tufted, is hiding behind weeds :-)
dan & jane are named after the coneheads from SNL years ago

what an adorable face! i love the big window in your incubator!!!

congrats ona lovely brood...
tf

I can't believe how fast they have grown! And that little keet is the cutest thing ever.

I wonder if Ideal sent me Brown Chinese instead of the White Chinese I ordered? I'm not seeing any white pin feathers on my two. I paid extra to have a sexed pair so I hope they got that part right!

larlienda do you know if Ducks and Geese like mealworms? I was in the garden working and seeing a lot of earthworms I collected some of the smallest ones and a couple of medium size ones. I fed the tiny ones to my chicks who went crazy over them. Then I put the two med size ones in the duck/geese brooder and the geese ignored them but my ducks squawked like they had just gotten a Christmas present! They scarfed them down right away!! I don't want to deplete my garden of earthworms so I'd like to find an acceptable alternative to offer them protein.

MollyD

grasshoppers!

thanks :-)

can't wait to see the chicks tomorrow or i guess possibly friday !

molly....i haven't had as many of my geese go after bugs like the ducks

i'm so hoping the guineas like bugs as much as i've heard :-)

the brown chinese goslings were pretty much all gray very similar to the toulouse goslings

Grasshoppers? We get some small brown ones every spring but late around early June.

larlienda what kind of chicks did you order?

MollyD

here's the list:

2324 Silver Laced Cochin 1
2801 Silver Lakenvelder 1
2794 Golden Lakenvelder 1
2267 Dark Brahma 1
2264 Buff Brahma 1
2164 Buff Orpington 1
2225 Speckled Sussex 2
2572 Sicilian Buttercup 2
2613 Cream Brabanter 2
2614 Cream Brabanter 1
2170 Ameraucanas 3
2210 Naked Neck 2
2167 Silver Laced Wyandotte 1
2249 Golden Laced Wyandotte 1
2703 Golden Spangled Hamburg 1
2601 Red Caps 1
2309 Blue Cochin 1
2318 Partridge Cochin 1
2139 Barred Rock 1
2094 California White 1


it's so diverse....last year we had 3 types w/5 each, so this is going to be really interesting

the geese and ducks will look pretty together....i have 2 cayuga males and 1 female....they have the beautiful green tones in with the black....just gorgeous

Did you get any crested ducks? Of my Cayugas two are crested (I have 3- lost one when they first arrived) . I read something about being careful who I mated them with but I have no idea if that meant it had to be non-crested or crested ?

MollyD

i ended up with a blue swiss crested....i thought the poor duckling was deformed as i had not heard of crested or tufted, etc
all the cayugas are "normal"

not sure about the mating do's and don't's
i know with chinchillas it makes a difference which colors are mated together....i just never would've thought that mattered much

They told me the cresting was the result of a lethal gene. If you put the wrong two together I think you get dead babies. Just not sure which two.

MollyD

Ended up with 7 keets so far (every time i think i'm unplugging the incubator there's another, so if all is quiet today then tomorrow day 33)....one has spraddled legs....will have to try and fix up better when my husband can help hold

chicks arrived today!
redcap was replaced with extra barred rock & the cream brabanters were dropped....i called & was told they were on backorder but i wasn't notified.....i may get them when they become available
one baby is blind....with a fuzzy little face i imagine it was hard to tell....not sure which one she is as so far i'm only confident which ones the turken ladies are!

this is the blind one

these are the first four keets

battery has to recharge for more pictures of keets and chicks :-)

same four, different angle

What do you like about ducks and whty do you like them ? Do you eat them or their eggs? Or are they just beautiful yard and pond ornaments? I just have them for pets, but wonder what others do with them .

I think mine are peking ducks. Just old fashioned white ones.

all of ours are pets....we are going to try the eggs this go around...most of the ones i found previously before our older ones started nesting were really dirty & apparently that isn't good.....glad i know that now

we are going to get a bunch of metal type crates that stack and have an open front to set up nesting boxes when these chicks grow up.....

all of them have lot's of personality and are funny to watch

we had two peking ducks before...one was blind and drowned & the other was killed
they were very sweet ducks

I didn't know a duck can drown, these two are in water over their heads and diving and everything. Should I lower the water level ?

my young daughters took the duck out of it's pen after my husband and i had been out....they put her in the water trough to go swimming & then they left and the poor duck couldn't get out....it was in the evening, so by the time i was out in morning it was too late....i'm sure she got exhausted after a while and probably panicked trying to get out :-(

Poor thing. Hope your daughter didn't feel too bad about forgetting. It's easy to do when kids are young.

MollyD

yes....one was 4 and the other 6....the older is special needs.....we are working really hard with them to understand how fragile birds and animals can be & that they have to get us for help......i hope it sinks in :-)

Poor babies (all three of them)

MollyD