The ducks have migrated to a new home.

The ducks have had me really stressed out this past week.  They got loud!!!  We got Khaki Campbells for two reasons.  They are great egg layers, and they are supposed to be one of the quieter ducks.

Well, if these things are quiet I'd hate to hear the loud ones.  It turns out that the females make a loud honking sound any time they get startled.  And they get startled a lot!  I couldn't even go out into my back yard without them freaking out.  It was annoying.  If it was annoying to me, I can only imagine what my neighbors must have thought.

None of my neighbors said anything to me, so I spent a lot of time debating what to do.  Should I just keep them until someone complains?  Should I get rid of them, and if so, where?  I didn't want to just release them into some random pond.  They might wander off into a road and get hit by a car.  They are fairly tame and are used to my dog so they might get eaten by predators.

I didn't want to get rid of them.  They're so entertaining to watch.  They have very unique personalities. We got them as a project for my son.  He did a good job taking care of them.  Their constant little quacking was pleasant to listen to while we were in the yard.  But... the honking was just too much.

Lucky for me, I knew of a great place where they could go, Cul de Sac Critters.  It's run by a family not too far from where I live.  They keep rabbits, chickens, and have ducks on a pond.  I visited them with my daughter to learn about rabbits before we got ours.  I contacted them and they were happy to take more ducks.  And wouldn't you know it, one of my neighbors was looking to get rid of 3 drakes.  So I took them too. 

I got home from work tonight and rounded up the ducks with my son's help.  They weren't happy to be put into boxes.  Then we went to our neighbors and picked up a box of drakes (male ducks).  And off to Cul de Sac Critters we went.

We went down to their pond and the 4 ducks they had swam away.  My son opened the boxes and released the birds one by one.

After the 6 birds were released the first 4 came back from the middle of the pond to greet them.

It was like a duck party after that.  The whole group of them were quacking and flapping and diving under the water.  They were doing what ducks do.  Seeing their reaction turned my stress and sadness into pure delight.  It was a really great sight. 

My son handled it really well.  He said that he was glad to see how happy the ducks were.  I think he understands the situation pretty well.  We tried something, and it didn't work out.  That's the way it is sometimes.  He's already talking about his next project.  He thinks he might want to get some chickens of his own.  He's talked about Muscovy ducks too.  (They're known as the quack-less duck.)  He has some time to decide.

I think watching from the dock was his way of saying good-bye.

Ducks at two months.

The ducks have grown a lot in the last two months.  When we got them they looked like this.

July 3, 2013

Now they look like this.

September 2, 2013

Ducks are interesting.  They stick together.  The chickens will wonder off and do their own thing.  If one of the ducks gets separated from the others it'll freak out.  They're really a tight group.  I wonder how that's going to work when they start laying.  They aren't as friendly as the chickens either.  I can get close to the chickens and as long as I don't try to pick them up they are fine.  The ducks freak out if you get within 10 feet of them.  My only complaint with them is the freaking out.  Khaki Campbells are supposed to be quiet ducks.  These guys talk a lot!  Most of the time it's not too loud.  It's just a constant, "quack quack quack."  But once in a while, or if they get spooked, they'll let out a big loud honk. 

Anyway, it's apparent in the picture above that the ducks are a little big for the original tub we got.  So it was time for another one.  I picked up a large mixing tub at Home Depot.  The first one held 10 gallons.  This one is twice as big and holds 20.  My son had to test it out on the patio.  Let me tell you...  Emptying those 20 gallons of water was a chore...  One that he didn't do.

I like to automate things as much as possible.  That meant putting a float valve on the new tub. 

Then I moved the tub to the back corner of the yard by the chicken coop.  We have this area fenced off.  This gives us the ability to keep the birds contained in a smaller space if the need arises. 

I connected the float valve to on the tub to the rain barrel next to my shed.

I installed a 1/2" PVC pipe with ball valve for a drain.  I documented how I did this on the first tub for the ducks.

I don't know how long it took for the tub to fill.  I opened the valve in the evening and in the morning the tub was full.

I haven't seen the ducks try the new tub yet.  They still prefer the other one.  Of course, it's in the middle of the yard and the new one is back in the corner.  Obviously I'm more likely to see them in the old one.

As for housing...  I moved the old chicken tractor into the area with the coop.  The ducks have been staying in it. 

Here's a picture of the entire area.  Duck house/tractor on the left, coop in the middle, and duck water on the right (in the corner). 

There's one more thing that I have to share.  It's a video of the ducks in the water. 

Ducks and water.

We've had ducks for about a month now.  They love water.  They're in it all the time. 

It doesn't take them long to make the water look like this.

I don't know how often their water needs to be changed, but I think once or twice a day seems like a good idea.  Tipping the tub over and dumping all of the water at once will get the job done.  It also washes away the mulch.  This was no good.  So I decided to install a drain.

I started by drilling a hole and then installed a uniseal. 

Then I inserted a 3/4" section of PVC pipe with a valve on it and refilled the tub with clean water.

The ducks approve!

They've gotten big.

Now emptying the tub is as simple as turning a valve.  The pipe allows it to drain much more slowly so the mulch isn't washed away.

The next step was to automate the filling process.  I've been filling the tub from the rain barrels.  I have to keep an eye on it though and shut the water off when the tub is full.  Since I'm dealing with low pressure this can take a while.

The solution?  I picked up a float valve at Agri Supply.  I installed it by drilling a 3/4" hole near the top of the tub.

 I also had to remove some of the outer lip.  Otherwise the threads on the float valve wouldn't be accessible.

I screwed a drip irrigation fitting to the float valve and attached a short piece of irrigation tubing.  That tubing was connected to a garden hose by another barbed fitting and a FPT to FHT adapter.

I opened the valve on the rain barrel and the tub filled with water.  It took a while to fill, but eventually the water rose enough to close the float valve.

 The ducks were curious about the float valve.  They nibbled on it for a while. 

After the ducks finished their play time I decided to turn the float upside down.  This allows the tub to fill with an additional inch of water.  I don't know if the ducks care, but I figured why not.

This setup isn't fully automated.  I still have to manually drain the tub.  I could put a timer valve on the drain, but I haven't decided if I want to make that investment or not.

The ducks have moved from the garage to the yard.

I am happy to report that the ducks are out of the garage! 

We had some concern about how the chickens would react to them.  So I fenced off a corner of the yard to keep them separated during the day.

 Their tub of water is in the corner behind the trellis.

They've been spending their nights in the chicken tractor.

Much to my surprise the ducks use the poultry nipple waterer.

We need to find a more permanent shelter for them at night. Moving them in and out of the tractor is not the long term plan.  The six remaining broilers have taken over the other tractor.  Once they're gone maybe the ducks will move into it.  Or, maybe they'll move into the coop with the layers.  I don't know if the ducks would stay in there or not.  We just have to wait and see what happens.

On a few occasions my son has let the ducks out to roam the yard.  From what he has told me, they are doing fine with the chickens.  They're still small enough that they could get under fence gate, so I don't think they are going to be left out on unsupervised anytime soon. 

Ducks -- Week 2

My son got 3 ducklings at the beginning of July.  I haven't really written much about them.  There's a reason for that.  They aren't really my project.  My son is raising them.  So he gets to do all of the work!  I see (and smell) them when I go through the garage.  That's pretty much it.  He cleans the cage.  He makes sure they have water and food.  In that regard things are working out well.  This was a project for him to learn some responsibility and earn some money in the process. 

Here he is hosing out the bottom of the cage.

I've been told by several people that, "Ducks are messy."  OK, what does that mean?  It means they get into their water and get it everywhere!  I don't know how they do it.  They have a 1-quart waterer in the cage with them.  Somehow they manage to soak every last pine shaving that's in there.  It doesn't seem like there's enough water in there for them to do that.  The wet mess attracts flies, lots and lots of flies.  And it doesn't smell so great.  Luckily they should be going into the yard pretty soon. 

It only takes them a few hours to do this.

I bought a mixing tub the other day to give them the chance to get in more water.  They loved it!  My son put it on the deck and filled it with water.

I don't know if their stomachs are supposed to look like this or not. 

They grown a lot, but still don't have feathers.  I'm not sure if that's normal or not.

  They're so stinking cute that you can stay mad at them for being so messy.

 

Ducks in the yard.

Here's a picture of the ducks in the yard.

They were out there for a good part of the afternoon yesterday.  They seemed to enjoy it.

Quack Quack -- Now we have ducks.

My daughter got her first rabbit the other day.  She plans on raising rabbits to sell for pets.  So my son decided that he'd like to raise ducks and sell duck eggs.  He got some books from the library and determined that he wanted Khaki Campbells.  They're a good layer.  So we split an order of ducklings with a neighbor.  They were hatched on July 1 and arrived in the mail on July 3.

Supposedly we got 3 females.  I'm not sure how they know when they're that little.

She won't be that little for long.  In three weeks they'll be in the yard.

They love, love, love the water.

Enough splashing, time for some rest.

I've always heard that ducks are messy.  I now know just how true that is.  They spend a lot of time in the water.  That gets the pine shavings soaked.  The water itself gets full of food and shavings and needs to be changed frequently.  My son has been pretty good about that.  He was playing at a friends house.  He came home to checked on the ducks and change their water and then went back to his friend's.  So already he appears to be learning some responsibility. 

I don't know why, but the ducks have attracted a lot of flies.  They're hovering around the cage and the food.  We didn't have that problem with 20 chicks in the garage so I don't know why 3 ducklings would attract them. 

They're eating plain old non-medicated chick feed.  I put a heat lamp in there with a 60w bulb, but I don't think it's really necessary.