Learn me: Ducks

I know this is really off topic but hey if anyone would have one it would be one of you guys!

So my S. O. wants a duck. not this:

but a real live quacky one.

So far I have learned you need at least a pair of ducks, or otherwise you have a sad duck, and they have ding dongs.

Other than that I have no clue.

I assume they need some water, can they do any tricks? Do they smell? Are they loud? I imagine they would be cheaper than dogs or cats and totally odd.
I do have about 5 acres to play with so room is not really an issue...

learn me ducks GRM'ers

my duck knowledge

Ducks are pretty quiet. Sometimes you will hear them quack, but it's not a constant thing.

If you get some, see about getting a brood of ducklings. Keep them in a dry kiddie pool in your garage for a month or two, then release them into what water source you have. The point is to let them get accustomed to you feeding them.

You didn't mention if you had a pond. That would be ideal.

Based on a friend's experiences, if you have raccoons, you will also have a decrementing duck count, even with a cage (ducks apparently aren't quite wary enough to stay out of reach...)

Tractor Supply Company sells live rabbits and baby chicks. You could give them a call to see if they also sell ducklings. That might be an inexpensive way to get one.

Love duck.

Especially duck breast with the right amount of skin/fat seared hard on a hot pan. Served with a good fruit sauce. yum.

Oh, you mean as a pet, and not a meal... sorry.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20027054-504083.html

Keep them away from your wife.

Oh yeah and +1 on the crispy skin and fruit sauce, but that's a year or two away...

valiant171 wrote: I know this is really off topic but hey if anyone would have one it would be one of you guys!

You got that right. We even got them for a GRM friendly price.

We got 2 ducklings about 6, or 7 years ago. They went everywhere together, until one got attacked by something, and died a few days later. Now he hangs around the hens. We have a creek on our property, and put a kiddy pool under some trees for him, but he rarely goes in the pool and never in the creek.

I wouldn't get more. He's miserable, never shuts up (although it's not loud, or annoying), and isn't particularly friendly. I would try to talk her into a few laying hens. They're sociable, stay round, are reasonably clean, and give you an egg a day.

Ducks aren't real bright, but they seem to be slightly smarter than chickens, I know that. I also know i'd rather not have poultry of any kind on my property.... but that's me.

The word from my local livestock farmers is that nobody bothers raising them around here because they're just jerks. Like geese with a Napoleon complex.

I agree with the notion of trying to steer her towards hens (a pile of newborn chicks should help with that). They're dumb but predictable, generally pretty easy to deal with, and fresh eggs are one of the better arguments for being at the top of the food chain.

I drove a DUKW once. Of course I was like 8 years old and sitting on the guys lap (don't worry my parents were supervising). I don't know anything about the animals but this:

DECK THE HAWS WITH BAWS OF HORRY! FA RA RA RA RAAAA RA RA RA RAAAAAAA!

If you decide to go the chicken route, I can put you in touch with a chicken-hobby expert who is really nice and I'm sure would love to help. She may have info (or at least sources) on ducks as well.

All I know from personal experience is DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES get guinea fowl.

Years ago, on a warm spring day, I was sitting with a girl I dug, on a deck beside a swimming pool that was full of a winter's worth of fallen leaves, so it looked more like a pond than a pool. Suddenly, two ducks splashed down and, apparently horny as hell, immediately engaged in some passionate on-the-water duck-love-making perhaps ten feet away. The girl and I started dating pretty soon thereafter.

So, um, if your love life is stale, maybe some ducks might help?

Duke wrote: All I know from personal experience is **DO NOT** UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES get guinea fowl.

Go on...

In reply to alex:

No one thing in particular. However, they are quite possibly the stupidest creatures that still have a centralized nervous system. They're incredibly noisy, have an annoying call, and since they are so stupid they need to remind each other (and themselves) of their presence continuously, even when they are less than 5 feet apart, which is most of the time. As if that's not enough, they consider "morning" to be about 4:30a.

Whatever you do, don't get geese. They bite your bum when your back's turned.

AFLAC!!

I don't know diddly about ducks, but I do want to get some hens someday.

Instead of getting chickens, just move to Kauai. Problem solved.

Oh, and the duck thing. They're pretty mellow. Maybe not especially mellow compared to a hen, but super mellow compared to a rooster. Roosters can be violent.

I had a pet duck when I was a child. Eventually we took him to my grandparents farm to live. Better environment. He was the only duck and lived with the chickens. He seemed happy.
My grandmother said he thought he was a chicken.

When I lived out in the middle of nowhere I had chickens ducks and yes guinea fowl.

Ducks - They came with the property, just a flock of 10 ducks that liked it there. There was a lake about a half mile away and during the day they would wander off and go for a swim. They'd come back to the house at night and hang out in the yard. Never any problems with them, not extrordinarily friendly. Except the one who we saw hopping around the yard one day and caught her to find she had a rubberband somehow wrapped tight around her leg cutting off all circulation to the foot. Cut it free and patched her up (it was dug in so tight that she bled quite a bit when it was removed) and she was pretty appreciative an friendly after that.

Chickens - fresh eggs, cant be beat, not much more to say than that. I ordered 20 chicks via mail and expected some attrition in shipping but nope all survived and I had egg overload. Make sure you get them from someone who gaurntees the sex. My inital, very uneducated, foray in to raising chickens resulted in a 5 roosters. Roosters DO NOT coexist well, it was a bloodbath when they got older. The lone survivor got the flock of hens after I decided to try again, he was happy. I live in a suburb now with 1 acre and still try to talk SWMBO into a small 2 or 3 member chicken coop....fresh eggs...seriously, just sooo much better.

Guinea Fowl - I lived in the middle of the woods, tick country. But there was nary a tick to be found on my property. These guys are bug eating machines. Everyone in the area had their own flock (and eventually there were just large roaving bands of them throughout the township) They can be noisy but I found mine were a great alarm system, they were only noisy when there was something or someone on the property they were not familiar with. They never cause a ruckus when I came home but let a stranger come on the property and I knew it before they hit the end of the driveway. As experienced by the large flocks in our township they are prolific breeders.

A few days ago, a family walked by on the sidewalk. A man and a woman, their kid in a stroller, and two ducks trotting along behind them.

When I was a kid in the early 70's in PVP, PRC, our neighbor had a Mallard duck. They would loan her out to other neighbors to get rid of snails. The duck was very nice and tame. She lived quite a while until something killed her.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if your wife's name was Polly.

Then you could say, "Polly wants a Quacker!!!!"

Oh groan!!