Photos from the Farm #18

Welcome back! I hope you had a wonderful week. 

We've been enjoying the nice weather but we hope we have more rain or snow because we will need the water for the garden, the pasture, and the animals during the summer.

Did you know that some animals get so excited to do their job that they don't take time to eat?

Scout is like that. He gets so excited to watch the ducklings, or check on the goats, or come out to the barn with us that he won't take time to eat.

He has started to get skinny because he doesn't want to eat.

You can see in the video how much energy Scout uses when he's watching the ducklings. He doesn't stay in one spot for very long! That takes a lot of energy, which means he should be eating a lot of food!

He's a good dog. Did you see how well he obeys?

The only thing Scout doesn't do well is eat his meals. 

We have to put him in his crate with the door closed until he finishes his meal.
If he doesn't eat enough he may get sick.
If he doesn't eat enough he won't have enough energy to play and do his work.
Scout has learned that we won't let him out until he finishes his meal,
so he eats everything now, even if he doesn't think he is hungry.

I thought you might like to see Sandy eating her breakfast on the milk stand. Sometimes she doesn't like the food we give her, but she is a good goat and eats all her food so that she can make milk and stay warm.

She finished all her breakfast and I'm done milking her so I can let her out to play with the other goats.

Miles and JJ eat all their food, too. Scout is the only animal that wants to skip a meal to go play! 

How many of you eat your breakfast and your lunch so that you can have enough energy to work and play? Are you like Scout? Do you skip a meal so you have time to play? Or are you like the goats and eat your meal even if it isn't your favorite so that you can play and be able to do your school work?

Eating meals is just as important for people as it is for animals!

 

Are Miles, JJ, and the goats smarter than you? Or do you make sure you eat your meals so you can stay healthy, have fun at recess, and do your best work at school and at home?

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Here's a funny video of JJ. She loves to smile in the morning!  She's learning to smile whenever we tell her to smile, but she doesn't do it all the time, yet.

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Look how much the ducklings are growing! They are eating a lot of food because they are growing so fast. They go out for recess in their pen every day so they can get some fresh air and sunshine. We make sure they have plenty of water and their food nearby so they can eat and drink whenever they are thirsty or hungry.
They love to taste everything. Human babies like to put everything in their mouth. Most baby farm animals like to put everything into their mouth, too!

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Echo and Remi wanted to say hi, so I took a picture of them. It is so much fun to have cows!

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 I didn't get any questions this week. I hope you have questions for me this week! I'm not sure what to write about next week! Send me some ideas!

Friday Photos from the Farm #4

Welcome back!

This week I was sick. Do you know what happens on a farm when someone is sick?

The same thing that happens every other day.

The animals are hungry and need to be fed. They need clean water, too.

The goats still need to be milked.

All the chores still need to be done!

No resting in bed just because I'm sick!

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Last week I promised to show you some pictures of our dog and some pictures of the ducks.

First I thought you might like to see how the chicks are growing. They are starting to get tiny feathers on their wings this week! They still follow their mama around so they stay safe and can find food and water.

Back in May while you were just finishing Kindergarten our mama duck hatched out some eggs. Do you see the fuzzy ducklings? The mama duck is the black and white one. The daddy duck (called a drake) is the big white one.

 

 

Here is a picture of them this week! They are about 5 months old now and look like adult ducks. What are things that look the same on the drake, the duck, and the young ducks?
What are some things that look different on the ducks?
Who is leading the line of ducks?

Here is Matt and his dog, Miles. His name is Miles because he has 'miles of smiles.'
He is always happy!

Miles reminds us of Dug from the movie, "Up!" He loves everyone he meets,
and he has a big, black nose.

Do you think they look alike?

These are the pumpkins that have been growing in our garden this year.
Some are small pumpkins. We will use those to make pie!
There are two big pumpkins. We will carve those for Halloween!

I thought you would like a silly picture of our goat, Clover. Her tongue is always hanging out when she's happy! What a funny goat!

Thanks for visiting again!

Next week I'll show you what it looks like to make cheese!

Make sure you ask your teacher good questions and I will do my best to answer them.

Growing Up

All the baby animals are growing well. We haven't had any more sickness this spring. Buddy is getting better and is now out with the kids and building up his muscles by playing and running. Vet2Be had a hard time getting a picture of him because he wanted to play. He is still a bit wobbly and falls down, but he picks himself up and is off playing again quickly.

Here's Buddy asking Vet2Be to please play with him and not to worry about the picture.

Here are the three lambs. The black lamb and the white lamb with the short tail (the one in the front) are still very friendly and love to come up to people. Since the long-tailed white lamb wasn't bottle fed, she really isn't interested in being friends with people.

Here are the 4 chicken poults that we bought from our friends. They are half Arucana (not Ameraucauna) and half Rhode Island Red. They should be good layers and lay blue-green or greenish eggs. If they lay brown eggs, that's okay. I just love opening a box of eggs and having different colors to look at.

The ducklings are now out with the big ducks. The wonderful thing about ducks is that they seem to get along well and there is no 'hen pecking' as there often is with chickens. These girls are all doing well! They know when there are people around, there must be food coming so anytime we go out, the ducks all come running in.

The turkey poults are doing well, too. Here they are with their little white chicken pal. A vet-tech in the area who knows Hubby asked if we would take an abandoned chick and duckling in. This chick is a few weeks younger than the black chicks. The black chicks weren't too thrilled with a new pal, but the turkey poults liked him (or her).

The turkey poults and chicks decided that they didn't like being confined to the stall so they flew over the board the other day. Vet2Be took the board down but left the stall gate closed. The poults and chicks can come in and out of the stall as they please now. They also have a place to run to if the old hens decide to pick on them.

We seem to have plenty of room for all of them, so there doesn't seem to be any problems with bigger animals picking on younger animals at this point. If we have problems later we'll fix up some new pens to keep the young ones safe.

More Ducklings

Last Tuesday was a busy day. We got more ducklings in the morning. We weren't expecting them until Wednesday morning. The Post Office usually calls by 6:30 AM when the ducklings arrive. This time I got the call at about 9:45--just when I was supposed to be leaving. It actually all worked out well, things kept getting delayed with our friends so we ended up leaving for the city later than expected. If we had left on time, the ducklings would have been sitting at the Post Office until late afternoon.

When I opened the box, all the 'Grow Gel' was gone. Usually there are a few crumbs left. Not this time. They acted as if they were starving! I put them in their brood box with water, food, and grass hay (for bedding). As soon as I dipped their beaks in water, they were drinking. They started eating quickly, too. They stayed in the box for about 24 hours, then they were switched into the old rabbit cage.

Here are most of the ducklings sunggled together in the brood box. There is usually a light over head, but I removed it so you could see the ducklings better. Most of these ducklings are at their new home. I love the way they look when they are all together, so I snapped a picture of most of them in the brooder. The dark ducklings are Golden 300, the yellow ducklings are White Layers.

This is the box that the ducklings were shipped in. They are shipped through the US Postal Service. We have lost any ducklings in shipping.

More than half have gone to their new homes. We placed the order for our family along with 4 other families. All are doing well. We ended up with one that had very weak legs and didn't look like it would make it. But after a few days she is doing fine. I think it is because it needed better access to the food and water, something that is difficult where there are 27 ducklings around.

We order our ducklings from Metzer Farm. They have always been very good to work with and their prices are very competitive. I always order the grow gel since I think it is better for the ducklings. Technically, the ducklings have just absorbed the yolk and are fine for about 60 hours after they are hatched. But I don't mind spending the extra $0.40 or so per bird to give them food and water just in case they need it.

Metzer Farm also includes a free duckling in all but the smallest orders, so that if one dies during shipping, they have already 'replaced' it. We got one duckling free this order.

Ducklings do just fine in shipping. They are warm because they are in with other ducklings, they have food and water (from the grow gel), and the Post Office does a surprisingly good job of taking care of them as they are being shipped.

We order a breed called "Golden 300" or "White Layers" since the reason we have the ducks is for their eggs. Both of these breeds are well known for both their egg laying ability (close to 300 per year) as well as their calmness. We love the way Runner Ducks look, but they are more exciteable. Since we have so many visitors, we tend to like the calmer breed of any animal so that their production remains more constant, whether there are visitors or not.

So, Vet2Be has 7 more female ducklings that will be laying eggs starting this fall.

We feed our ducklings Turkey Grower since they do better on a higher protein content and no medicated feed. We aren't able to get a 22% protein content feed in our area, so we use Turkey Grower (at 26% protein content). We haven't had any trouble with Angel Wing, so we haven't worried about the higher protein content yet.

Duckling Care

This is a handout that Vet2Be had for the volunteers at his Eagle Project on 25 April 2009. I thought I would post it here in case someone is interested in how we raise our ducklings.

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I prefer to raise the Golden 300 ducks from Metzer Farms because they lay more eggs than many breeds of chickens. Golden 300 ducks are a calm breed.

Keeping ducklings warm
Keep ducklings in a warm and safe environment. Use a heat lamp with a 40 to 100 watt bulb. Make sure heat lamps are secured and the area is large enough for the ducklings to get closer if they are cold and further away if too warm. Adjust the height and wattage according to your ducklings behavior. If they seem warm and settled, not huddling under the lamp, they are probably warm enough. If they are scattered out, away from the lamp, and panting, they are too warm. During the first week the lamp is hung on the inside of the cage. We use a 75 watt bulb in a reflector. During the second week, if the weather is nice, we put the lamp on top of the cage. We also cover the cage with an old wool blanket to keep in the heat and keep out the drafts.

Bedding and housing
Hay can be used if available for bedding. Never use newspaper or a smooth surface, as it could cause leg problems or a condition called "splay leg.” We put our ducklings in an old rabbit cage. Make sure the ducklings feet can't go through the wire at the bottom of the cage. The bottom of the cage is covered with old grass hay. We change the bedding every day. The rabbit cage allows most of the water to drip through onto the dirt so we don't have as much clean up. You can also put your ducklings in a large plastic tote or an old fish tank with pine shavings for bedding. This needs to be cleaned more often and tends to smell. We raise our ducklings in the barn, if you are raising yours in the house or in the garage, we recommend you use a large plastic tote or an old fish tank depending on how many ducklings you are raising.

Feeding ducklings
Feed game bird starter, un-medicated chick starter, or a commercially prepared waterfowl starter for the first 4-6 weeks. Never feed medicated chick starter or poultry feed, as this is fatal to your ducklings. Also anything moldy is fatal to your ducks of all ages! Bread, although thought of as the ideal "duck food," is also dangerous to ducklings, because it expands in their crop and chokes them. For the first few weeks they will need a constant supply of food and water. If they have food, water must be present or they can choke to death. Ducklings will take a mouthful of food and then take a drink in order to swallow. Never use any moldy bedding. Ducklings need starter feed with 20-22% protein for 3 weeks. Too much protein can cause a condition called "Angel Wing" where the feathers on the wings protrude upwards. Too little can cause nutritional deficiencies and serious health problems. Cracked corn is a popular and inexpensive food for ducks. It contains half of the protein a duck needs to stay healthy.

A growing duckling will eat 1-2 ounces of commercial ration per day gradually increasing to about 8 ounces a day when it reaches full size. We free feed our ducklings, they have access to food at all times. The protein content of their feed can be reduced at 3 weeks (to 17.5%) and at 9 weeks (to 14.5%).

We use an old tuna can for a feeder when the ducklings are very young. We switch to a half-moon rabbit feeder when they get to be about 3 weeks because it fits on the edge of the rabbit cage. We use a purchased poultry waterer to water the ducklings although you can drill a ¼” hole in the lip of an old plastic can or container (about ½” from the lip) and sit it in a pan or lid that is about ¾” tall. Fill the jar or can with water, set the lid on top and flip the ‘contraption’ over. The water should fill the pan, but stop when the water reaches the hole.

Spring 2009 we raised our ducklings on turkey starter. A 50 lb. bag of turkey 27% starter mash costs $16.99 at IFA. Although most information says this is too much protein for ducklings, we have found they do fine in our area.

Water
Ducklings love to play in water however they are not old enough and will soil their water. We use a poultry waterer. You can also use a cake pan with a piece of fencing made into a cylinder and placed in the center of the pan. The cylinder should be about one inch in diameter smaller then the pan. Never let the ducklings go without water, without it they will choke on their food and die.

Ducklings and swimming
Without the protective oils produced by the Mother, or feathers with barbicels that provide a waterproof barrier, a duckling's down soaks up water like a sponge. They will tire quickly and drown. Once they are fully feathered, about 30-45 days after birth, they are safe to be in water without their mother. Always be sure they can get in and out of the water safely on their own. Never leave ducklings unattended near water sources they can't stand up in. Be sure their drinking water supply is the shallow reservoir type (found in pet stores) otherwise they will try to swim and poop in it and if it's too deep they can drown.

How much space do ducklings need?
Age in Weeks
1-3 4-8 9-17 17+
1 sq foot 3 sq feet 3.5 sq feet 4 sq feet

Although ducklings are messier to raise than chickens, they are much easier for us to take care of as adults.

Here are some websites that we found helpful as we were learning how to raise ducklings.
Metzer Farms
How to Take Care of Ducklings
Phelps Waterfowl
How To Do Things. com
Live Ducks