Ready or Not....... Shouldvknwnbetter- Fall

[Hens and Roos]

Not to interupt your conversation, .....but Fred talking us into getting the KC 's was the best decision ever ! We absolutely love them, they eat out the feed bowls with the goats and we do not have a mosquito or snail problem anymore, they put a smile on our faces EVERY day.

No worries, post away with what works for you...I'm still in the fact gathering/planning stage

 

[CntryBoy777]

Sorry about the break....had to tend to Gabbie and there was a bad car wreck just down from the house and went down to help the couple that was in a pickup that flipped on its roof and ended up in the woods across the road....no obvious injuries, but they were really lucky.....
Here are some pics of the ducks and goats....

Our older doe was fb pygmy and she could fit thru the hole that I cut for the ducks and she would go thru it and eat the duck's Layena pellets.....
....we always joked about the big black duck making her appearance....
Here the Boys are checking out the bedding hay and watching me shut them up for the day....
.....the area that we shut them up in was 6'x8'.....but, I learned that 3' deep would've been better on us for cleaning it out....they are ground birds, so the space required isn't much compared to chickens and the ducks aren't as suseptible to the cold either....
...the last pic is of the drake in the light phase colors and the hens are also....they molt twice a year and it is the only time they don't lay and their molt only lasts for a week or less....they shed their feathers pretty fast. As far as being noisy, the KC doesn't normally quack very loud, but they chitter and chatter as if they are talking to ya....when they get real loud, there is something strange in the territory....having a drake is worth it, because it is his job to watch out for danger...the hens won't, but they will take signal from a rooster.
I guess I have been a bit "wordy" in giving ya info and have been told on many occassions that I don't know when to shut up..........but, I just like to be as complete as I can and any question is more than welcome.....

 

[Bruce]

How did they manage to flip the truck? Darn lucky those two, could likely have been dead or worse.

 

[CntryBoy777]

How did they manage to flip the truck? Darn lucky those two, could likely have been dead or worse.

Just lost control....was glad there weren't any kids walking or bike riders on the street when it happened....sand and pavement along with elevation differences can make it difficult to control and easy to overcorrect.

 

[Baymule]

I built a chicken tractor this spring and put a hinged top on the front third of it. I use it instead of the end gate. So if you build another KC house, put a hinged top on it, maybe split in two for easier access.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Glad to hear that they okay @CntryBoy777 and that you could give them a hand. Thanks for sharing the pictures, its nice to get ideas from other set ups. Will have to ponder this some more and see if we can come up with something that works for us!

We are dealing with wet and mud here more so this year then in the past couple. I've been working on checking fecals and treating the ones who need it, several are quite high with the egg counts. Flies are still around in large numbers too and bother the goats.

Had kind of hoped that things would slow down a bit for us once we made it past this summer and getting 10 rental units ready...but that doesn't seem to be the case...

 

[CntryBoy777]

Something that I did with the duck litter was to pull it out into their pen and let it decompose there....having heavy clay soil and wet periods make the footing very slippery, so ot worked well for our and their footing.....their web feet pack the soil and they will eat anything green like a chicken, so their area will become bare if they are contained in it....it wasn't an issue in the fields, they would play in the puddles, but when they dried up would move on and the grass would recover....our 12 ducks ate quite a bit of grass along with the bugs....as far as treats they like quite a few things, watermelon and oregano were 2 of ours favorites....they will eat the melon down to the thin green skin, ya could almost read through it.....

 

[Hens and Roos]

@CntryBoy777 did you have problems keeping the goat water clean or some how keep the ducks from it? Our goats like the water to stay clean, we have problems with sparrows always messing it up and change it out at least twice a day.

 

[CntryBoy777]

We didn't have a problem with it, because the ducks can't climb a steeply angled incline and the goats water was kept on their deck at their house....the goats wouldn't drink from the bucket with leaves and acorns or bugs in it either and being under a bunch of oaks and sweeet gum trees sure was difficult....so, I put their water on the deck as close to the sides of the house as I could to use the house to block the debris from it....I changed their water twice a day also, but I had a few buckets out in the field for the ducks to muck up and they will always use the closest water.
The ducks won't fly and climb like a chicken, so if you elevate the water the goats will get to it, but the ducks won't....it doesn't have to be extremely high, just high enough they can't stretch and get to it....ya could put it on some cinder blocks and have a single block for the goats to stand on to reach it, or something like a picnic table and there won't be a problem...if ya use a true 5gal bucket just don't fill it to overflowing full, it the water is a few inches from the top it will be difficult for them to reach inside.....they don't dip the bill and raise it to drink like chickens, they swing their head from side to side to sift what is in their bill and seine out the food allowing the trash to drain back into the water......

 

[HomeOnTheRange]

Do not mean to hijack the thread @Hens and Roos...
@CntryBoy777, do ducks go back into their pen at night if there are not "escorted"? We have chickens with an auto door that shuts about 35 minutes after sun down and opens about an hour after sun rise.