Wife needs to stop sending me to town

[CrealCritter]

Can't be for sure, but I believe these two were bred during the 1980's big hair era. 😂

 

[CrealCritter]

Wife wants duck, wife got ducks, .50 tractor supply Pekin ducks, 4 male 1 female. Happy Wife / Happy Life : 😂

 

[farmerjan]

Yes, free fertilizer, but make sure you don't have to walk anywhere they have recently been. They make a mess and the fertilizer is very messy.
The sad thing is that they travel so much that they do pickup and carry diseases. We hated the Canada geese when I was a kid in CT, they would mess up the lawn and banks of the pond at the house, eat everything they could get into in the gardens. They also got quite aggressive with us, protecting the young I understand, but they were not liked on our small ponds.

 

[CrealCritter]

Sweet. What kind of ducks?

Peking (white) ducks to eat. My wife's ducks and she ain't named them because she knows better. She'll be eating them soon enough 😂


Internet picture

 

[Alaskan]

Looks great!

I would have stuck a huge vent in there....

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Also, consider this: you will be training them to come out of water for an evening feed. Ducks MUST have water when they eat. So, provide a bucket of water inside the little fenced area. Their evening routine can be: come for feed, get shut into the little penned area, then after they've eaten, and sloshed it down, shoo them into the coop for the night. If you cut in a window, (with hdw. cloth for pred protection,) they will be less fearful of going in. Ducks LOVE a nice thick bedding of hay or straw. That will also be an enticement for them. If you intend to keep a couple breeders, you'll want to train them to lay in the coop as well!!! First eggs at 5 - 6 months. And, I much prefer duck eggs to chicken eggs!!! One of those Pekin eggs will = 2 - 3 chicken eggs.

 

[CrealCritter]

Well the simple copper wire solar light string came in. It has 2 modes, flash and constant. It also has an on/off button. You have to cover the solar panel with something dark to know if it's on or off and what mode it's in. So even when it's on its off untill it gets dark, I like that auto sensing feature.

The installation was easy with a staple gun set on it's lightest setting and a drill to feed the wire through from the outside. Installation took about 5 minutes, so I would say it was easy.

I wasn't expecting much for $8.95 plus tax and free shipping. It's plastic and came with a 1.2v nicad rechargeable battery. I took the back cover off via 4 screws and it has a little circuit board inside behind the solar panel. It seems of pretty good quality, so I was surprised. I'll get a pic of the inside of the duck house when it's dark outside.

I guess the plus side to the duck house is the free range chickens found it and are laying eggs in the corner on the floor. I guess I'll need to put a few roosts in there and if the ducks don't take to it, at least the chickens already have.

eBay - I ordered the white ones.
View attachment 15974

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

So I remembered I was going to give a review of these Solar Powered LED String lights.

Well they work but only if it's sunny. It would seem to me if there is a cloudy day, the solar cell does not charge the battery, so the chickens go into a dark coop at night if it's cloudy or overcast during the day. My opinion... This is more of a novelty than anything dependable or reliable.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[CrealCritter]

---> My <--- method for sexing young chicks. I've tried this method many times and it proves around 95% correct. I've even marked the chicks legs from previous hatches, just so I could keep track.

If you take a young chicken chick in your hand, flip it on its back and wait a couple of seconds, for it to settle down. If the chick pulls both of it's feet up tight, it's a hen. If it extends even one leg, it's a roo. Although most roos extend both legs out straight.

This chick is a hen, notice it's feet are pulled up tight to its adomen. I must have fished out 50 chicks from those tubs, looking for hens.

Turkey chicks are the exact opposite. Hens extend their legs and roos pull their legs up tight.

Please note... I have no formal chicken/turkey education. This is just my trial and error experiences, talking. I'm sure there are other ways to sex fowls, but this method seems to work well for me, it's pretty accurate.

 

[Hinotori]

Big white spot on the head is male in barred rock. Females tend to have smaller or no spots. Has to do with the gene that controls the color turning on and off in the feathers and how 2 copies make for finer barring that makes the adult roosters look lighter colored because they have almost double the stripes on each feather than the females.

This actually holds true for cuckoo as well even though the stripes on the feathers aren't the same on each side of the feather shaft.

Show barred rocks are bred for either female show or male show. Ideal barring for both isn't actually achievable in the same flock. Goes back to how that gene works and what the standard says.

Try raising silkies in any color other than partridge. You often can't be sure of the sex until it lays an egg or crows. If you breed them, you get used to sexing your own birds early, like around 10-12 weeks. Silkies also mature very slowly. Mine average around 9 months before they lay. Often the roosters won't crow until well over a year old.

 

[CrealCritter]

My wife's babies got deluxe accommodations 8'x16' tack room converted into a coup.

I can't seem to free up this tack room in the barn long enough to move it out of the barn. First CCX, then Turkey Tom, now wife's babies. I do know one thing... All that hay deep bedding and lime I put in there is garden gold.