Another duck question : )

Ok, Aflak is like anywhere from 6 to 7 weeks now and I'm wondering at what age would I see the tail curl if male? Aflak does quack, but also makes other noises, when would that change? Any ideas?

hmmm, you are asking an interesting question. seems my guys [all four] had their tails curled up by then. and they aren't as loud as i suspected... we can both post pics and compare curlies?

I'd love to see pictures of these curling tails cause I sure don't know where to look on my three. Judging by behavior I'm leaning towards one male and two hens but.........
All three quack about the same. They sound like a crowd of angry customers LOL

MollyD

Ok, and also will any of the breeds I have fly away or will they stay in their pen? So, you say Aflak's tail should already be curly?

Bumpy McBumperson : )

This message was edited Jun 9, 2008 12:37 PM

hummm, I didn't even know about the tail curling thing.....does that apply to all duck breeds...if so, looks like I got 4 girls....1 Pekin and 3 Ruins....and now I have heard the name so many times of Aflik for a Pekin, I might just have to borrow it....does it matter that my Aflik appears to be a her? : )

You can be pretty certain of the tail at about three months, as for the quack or whisper, that might be a bit harder to identify without annother for comparison. Both makles and females will quack when angry or upset, but the general male sound is a raspy woodwind sort of sound. Maybe like a rusty flute in the lower registers. (Doubt that any of that will help)

I've always found pekins one of the more difficult ducks to sex for some reason. When Quackers came to me he was so dirty and worn out that his tail did not curl and he made almost no noise. It was only after a couple of baths and a lot of food and water that we could tell. (He was found abandoned in the bathroom of an apartment a couple of weeks after the people moved out.)

Pekins rarely fly, their wings are so small and their butts so fat that they couldn't get off the ground with a running start and a trampoline. I can keep Quackers contained wth a six inch high fence, though he does use the doggy door.

Do White Chinese geese and Cayuga Ducks fly? I've been wondering that as mine are feathering out.

MollyD

I see no tail curl, maybe too early for that, but Aflak does quack but not alot. Actually, Aflak does alot of honking and a light chirpy cluckish sound. Hmmm, will I see the start of a curl now, or could that happen any time from now until 3 months? LadyBugs I see no reason why you couldn't use Aflak for a female.

patch, i am bertter late than never, huh? i thought all four of mine had tail cursl, well they did, but apparently THE curl shows up about NOW, which is 3 1/2 months. honestly with all this baby chick stuff, i just count to be sure there are four small white heads foloowing each other around. figured i had four males to eat. but suddenly, really, SUDDENLY, one has a bigger head and the cuteste little CURly-Q! so don't make any sex guesses just yet...

molly, chinese cannot fly [neither can pekins]. but now and then they love to run and honk and flap their wings like they are coming in for a landing LOL clueless about Cayuga...

Thanks TF : ) So looks like I'll be waiting a little longer to be sure. My DB thinks Aflak is a male, says he sounds like jyl's description, but until I see the curl I won't be certain. Hey Molly, your Cayugas won't fly neither. I looked up all of my breeds and they are mainly ground dwellers, although I have heard of a few Runners taking to the air but not usually.

Thanks Heavens! I was worried I'd have clip their wings. Hate the idea of having to do that. You're right tf the White Chinese look like a huge plane coming in for a landing when they run and flap their wings LOL. My kids are all getting pretty big now. Today I bought finisher for them.

MollyD

anyone recall where my fly growing positngs are? tyring to copy that info to another forum...

Don't remember--but I know some have been very worried about your little....emmm "obsession" and I just wanted to post this--at least you don't have them raining down on the chickens from the skies......yet.

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Feeding-Chickens-Maggots.html

EEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!

OMG! "Barf"! Maggie McMaggotson, Blah!

Oh, and the best part of that link; "I chop the beaver (or whatever roadkill) up into five pieces before placing it into the bucket". Egad!

tf, we are staging an Intervention. Those Sustainables are just enablers. Someday you will know who your REAL friends are!

my real friends are CHICKEN SLAVES!

Well, yes.

I picture tf driving down the highway, stopping at every dead carcass...."Oh just one more, I wonder how many lil maggots this will make for mommies chickens"? Peppy LePue ; )

not ufnny. i used to pull over for wildflowers, and seeds and plants. then had to pull over for DH to pick up roadkill for feathers and such. and stopping for live terrapins to rescue before becoming road kill. tf AIN'T in the pulling over business any longer... i'll just buy livers and gizzards and such when they mark them down at the grocery store. gonna get a fly trap from gebo's for 5 bucks... and hang it somewhere.......

TF, don't you dare talk about pulling over to help live turtles so they don't become roadkill. I did that this morning. Turtle was on the center divider strip going the same direction I was when I stopped. Had to wait until she decided which direction she was going. When she did, I got out and made sure she was off the road before I got back in.

GG

I did that once with a snapping turtle--a man stopped to help me and it took both of us to get it from the meadow side of the road to the pond side. It kept lunging at us and turning in circles as we tried to push it across with a shovel. Nasty Creature!

Had it been a snapper, I would have left it alone. They tend to get pretty big around here. I only help if I can see which it is going. If you put it on the wrong side of the road, it will only go back across. We have quite a few land turtles around here. Of course they are endangered ones. This one wasn't a land turtle, tho. It was heading towards the river when I saw it.

GG

I have a painted turtle right now that I am rehabbing. It was run over and the shell is broken. It's almost healed up enough to bondo now and once that is done, I'll send her on her way. Luckily she had already laid her eggs before she was hit.

Snappers are boogers to work with. If I have to do a repair, I put them in the fridge or freezer till they are sleeping. You have to make darn sure you don't forget them in the freezer! Not only would it be bad for the turtle, but I think it would do my husband in!

i think you need your own speical freezer jyl!

i bring home the dern things, becasue i can never tell which way they are going anyhow!

except alligator turtles, ya'll ever seen on eof those? somewhere i have pictures of some we caught when fishing, they are mean suckers!!!

Yeah, those aligator turtles get enormous! My older sis and myself were driving to work one day and had to stop and wait because one of them was crossing the highway. There was a whole line of traffick waiting for this turtle to cross. It must have been a couple feet tall and I don't know how many long. Largest turtle I've ever seen that wasn't in the zoo. It looked cool with it's spiky tail and back, just like a dinosaur.

wow, much bigger than what we have here... they really love bait we use to fish!

well, now DH will be on the lookout for roadkill, becasue i have a new method of growing maggots for the chickens!!!

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Feeding-Chickens-Maggots.html

we hung our first bucket today. we shot a couple of chicken feed theives, the furry footed hoppity kind...

Well, good luckers on your maggot farming tf, um, happy hatching ; )

LOL Patch.....I'm just waiting to see how well this free protein works.....might just try it, but I haven't managed to tell my DH about it.....he'd probably think I'd lost it for sure. I can just see that conversation....hey honey, guess what I learned today? I'm still trying to get over the whole ewwwww factor and gag reflex too! : )

Yeah tf...happy hatching! (not so secretly glad it's you trying this out and not me!)

Well LadyBugs, I'll just stand here and watch and if it goes good for tf and you then I might give it a try. (But probably not) ; )

Well, I guarantee it ain't gonna happen here. We would attract too many maggot loving critters by doing that.

GG

lol Patch! Come on, you know you wanna? Why let all those 'lovely' little wigglers just go to waste? AND you would cut down on the fly population around you too!

So Granny, do you have any problem with the whole 'nasty' factor or is it just the unwanted critters it would attract? I know you said you lived in the middle of a forest....I can just imagine all the animals you could attract.

You know I used to get a lot of small maggots when I left the window open and didn't clean the rabbits cage every week ( well there was only one rabbit and flies breed very quickly--she had her own latrine area--rabbits are very determined housekeepers). So maybe you could do it with a slightly less objectionable substrate?

Catscan....do you mean something like leaving rabbit poo be for a while and letting nature take it course in growing them?

Well, yes.....You could try suspending it like tf suggested for road kill--right? Not quite so nasty.

ladybug, it is the critter problem we would have. We seem to have gotten rid of them by using orange fencing around the one garden, having the other one in a cul-d-sac between the garage and one of the sheds with lattice at one end, taking the bird feeders and deer feeder down at night, and making sure we have a secure place for the chicks. So far, so good for this year. Only had 1 possum, and have had a few skunks going through but not stopping.

Those plus the bears are the main critters that a maggot farm would attract.

GG

That is interesting Catscan.....I wonder if it would work as well? It would for sure be a less smelling solutions......not a very good smell,mind you....but a lot better than the alternative.

Granny.....I'm glad you haven't had any problems this year..(knock on wood)! I was wondering if you meant bears.....you had said forest, so the first thing I thought of was bears at the time. I wonder if suspending rabbit droppings would work and keep unwanted critters away at the same time.....or if a bear would smell those and follow it anyway thinking...'I smell a wabbit!' If it could work, you would have to get some rabbits......or would any 'poo' do? ^_^