Our Ducks

My husband thought we needed ducks for our pond, so after raising chickens for awhile and determining that we could do it...I bought some baby ducks to raise.  I was really surprised at how rapidly they grow and how messy they are.  No lie...ducks and geese poop constantly and are almost full size by the ripe old age of five weeks.

Our ducks have finally gotten old enough that we can tell what sex they are.  We have 2 Khaki Campbell male Drakes, 1 Rouen Drake and 2 Rouen duck hens.  Because we have no female Khaki Campbell's I decided to get some Khaki Campbell hatching eggs and put them in the incubator about three weeks ago...hatch day is fast approaching, it takes 28 days to incubate duck and goose eggs.  They sent 12 Khaki Campbell eggs and 4 extra eggs...I haven't got a clue what they are, they are marked H4 or Hy...so maybe a hybrid?  I have been taking eggs out and candling them to see the progress of the duck eggs...we may have a very successful hatch.  I am guessing duck eggs are just better for mail order eggs...tougher and can handle being shipped better than chicken eggs. 

I originally got Khaki Campbell's because they are suppose to lay eggs as well as chickens do...when we had no females I was rather disappointed.  We have male African Geese too, I was told they were Toulouse geese...I guess we need to learn how to sex ducks and geese so we get females when we need them.  We will probably get female geese come Spring...even if I have to get hatching eggs and hatch them myself.  

I got a nice surprise 3 days ago, after separating the two females and male Rouen ducks from the others...I got my first duck egg!  The very next day we got two duck eggs!  So my females are both laying now.  I want to put a few of their eggs in the incubator too.  They may be hybrids...a Rouen and Khaki Campbell mix.  But, we shall see.  Ducks, Geese and chickens love to eat bugs and weeds...we may need to fence more of our property so they can free range a greater area to take care of all the front part of our property...my husband believes they eat ants and I am all for them getting rid of those!

We separated the geese and two Khaki Campbell males from the others because they were picking on the Rouen male so badly, the Khaki Campbell with a white ring on his neck was constantly chasing and pecking him and one of the geese was pecking and sometimes tried to drown one of the females.  They are much happier without getting pecked on and chased. The two African Geese and two Khaki Campbell Drakes are in the pen with the teen chicks who are rapidly becoming adults...they can protect themselves, but the pen is also really big and they have room to get away from each other too.  We have a kiddie pool in that pen for them to get wet in, but we may end up moving the smaller 50 gallon cattle tank over into the pen.  The kiddie pool only has a couple of inches of water in it...chickens can drown pretty easy.  

We have not named very many of our poultry beyond the first hens and roosters.  Just a few and normally we call them a name based on a characteristic...like Poofy Face, Big Red, Brown Racer from our original flock.  We have a Mister and Mrs, the Speckled Sussex pair my neighbors gave me (they tend the smaller chicks), Spike the dominant Dominique mix rooster (he has a big spiky comb) and that is about it so far.  I am leaning towards naming the ladies gem names like Amber, Topaz, Garnet, Diamond, Pearl...etc, but some are hard to tell apart.  I have some bands to put on their legs to help ID them...but I gotta catch them first.