How to Goose a Duck...

Last night the house cat wandered into the incubation room (ok... laundry room), took a deep whiff of the baby bird smell and tail a' twitching had that predatory look in his eye. I decided then and there it would be in the best interests of my fledgling waterfowl to move the brooder to mine and hubster's bedroom, which worked out well since it's always 90 degrees in there anyway and nothing I can do about it.

In other words, it's really hot.

With 3 trips up and down in the night anyway to look in on them and add food/water on my way it worked out. This morning I was greeted with gentle peeping and 5 little fuzzy bills looking for more baby food. Then a screech and a wail of the actual baby expecting some baby food. Then as soon as I finished getting something for the 5 year old to eat the 10 month old was hungry too.

Kids fed, husband fed, dogs watered, garden watered, horses fed I got back to those ducks. They're really active today! Even the runty one is starting to keep up with the big girls.

Once I got the brooder clean I sat down to look at the hatchery's info and they posted my girls' breed as sold out till 2012.

So it looks like they won't be able to replace the babies I lost without a substitution, and honestly-- I dont want anything besides egg ducks, and I really don't want crested versions of the same breed-- they look like Snooki, and have a lethal gene. (If only we could say the same for Jersey Shore.)

The far less rare than you'd like-- Crested Snooki

I'm definitely going to try to pursue the refund for the remainder of my order and finish off my flock elsewhere.
One site I've been looking at is Metzer Farms. They purportedly have good gene strains for campbells, as well as hybrid layer ducks that supposedly out perform khakis laying wise, and very different personalities. I'm thinking of finishing my flock either with their campbells, or with the white layers they have.



Something I found useful on the metzer site in the field of farm girl skills, is a video that teaches you how to check the gender of your day old ducks and geese.

Yeah... it's not pretty but at least you'll know how many and which of your hatch-lings is destined for the freezer.

I guess I'd have to get some kind of bands so I could mark them...

One of the sad things about the Golden 300 Hybrid and the White Layer is that since they are bred for efficient commercial egg farms, a disproportionate number of females are in demand and the males are pretty much unwanted.

To the extent that the farms will include one free of charge male for every female ordered (or less) which is perfectly fine for us hobby farmers as we don't mind cooking smaller mallards, or passing them on to other backyard farmers (imagine what a stud duck of this breed will do for a home flock!)
If I manage to get a refund from my first hatchery, I may just have to give some white layers a try this summer.