Duck First Aid Kits

Welcome to Episode 10 of the Duck Ladies Pondcast with Host Krissy from @DunkinDucks and Emily from ​@CheeseandQuackersHomestead ! In episode 10 we discuss exciting homestead updates and what we keep in our duck first aid kits!

Watch this episode on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/fSZXUFVrRTY

Table Of Contents: 
0:00:00 Intro
0:00:40 Homestead Updates | Krissy's New Pond | Toxic Plants | Emily's Latest Egg Hatch & Ducklings
0:21:41 Metzer Farms | VitaMetz
0:24:31 What We Keep In Our Duck First Aid Kits
1:01:38 Closing

Check out our sponsor:
Metzer Farms; A family owned waterfowl hatchery with 32 breeds of ducks and 13 breeds of geese: https://www.metzerfarms.com

Dunkin Ducks Amazon List of Duck First Aid Kid Supplies: https://www.amazon.com/shop/dunkin.ducks/list/2BWUW45JHQK1U?ref_=aipsflist

Cheese & Quackers Amazon List of Duck Fist Aid Kit Supplies: https://a.co/d/06VCSxzJ

Become a Monthly Supporter of the Show: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2596307/support 

Love wearing adorable duck shirts? 
Check out The Pondcast Merch here: duckladiespondcast.dashery.com
Check out Dunkin Ducks Merch here: https://dunkinducks.dashery.com/
Check out Cheese & Quackers Merch here: https://cqhomestead.com/

Don’t forget to follow the podcast across all social channels!

YouTube   @TheDuckLadiesPondcast 
TikTok: @duckladiespondcast 
Instagram: @duckladiespondcast
Facebook: @The Duck Ladies Pondcast 
Snapchat: @duckpondcast 

Subscribe to Dunkin Ducks: www.youtube.com/@DunkinDucks
Subscribe to Cheese & Quackers Homestead: www.youtube.com/@CheeseandQuackersHomestead

Thank you for watching and supporting the pondcast! Please drop any questions or ideas for future episodes down below!

Contact us for sponsorship inquires at theduckladiespondcast@gmail.com

Thanks for watching, and to support the show please feel free to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! ❤️

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, it's Emily from the Duck Ladies Podcast. Before we get started today, I wanted to let you guys know that this episode is gonna be pretty visual heavy. If you're listening in rather than watching, you can either head over to the Duck Ladies Podcast channel over on YouTube now to follow along, or you can reference it back with any questions you have on any of the products we're discussing. The links you need can be found in the show notes, and without further ado, we'll get into the episode. Hey everyone, and welcome to the Duck Ladies Podcast episode 10.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I'm your host, Chrissy from Dunkin' Ducks, here with Emily from Cheese and Quackers Homestead. And today we have some exciting things to discuss as far as updates on the homesteads. We're also going to be discussing call ducks as our breed of the week and talking about what we keep in our duck first aid kits.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Yes, can we start with your homestead updates? Because they're really, really exciting, and I want to hear all about them.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

So the biggest thing that has happened this week is that I got my new pond. I don't even know where to start. This has just been the coolest thing ever. I mean, it's incredible. So this specific pond, it's an Aquascape ecosystem pond. And if you don't know what that is, you should look it up because they're they're really cool. I'm not the best at explaining it yet, because I'm still new to the Aquascape lifestyle. But essentially the filter for the pond is like about the same size as the pond. And that's wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

That's what you need for waterfowl, actually. Um, my understanding is you really have to overshoot the filtration system. So I was watching when your filtration system was put in. And let me tell you, I don't know that much about ponds. We built a pond and I was like, I might destroy my land. This might work. Uh, we'll see how it goes. And I was master of Google and we did it all over ourselves. It was terrifying. But I always looked into filtration systems and I genuinely never found something that fit when it came to waterfowl that actually seemed like it was gonna fit the bill. But the filtration system that you had installed, I was watching the video and I was like, ooh, that might be what you need for waterfowl. Like, that looks like you can handle it.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

It's funny because in my book, Raising Ducks for Beginners and Beyond, I specifically am like, filters just aren't really an option for ducks unless you are willing to spend thousands of dollars on a bog filter ecosystem wetland filter option. And that's still true. And even so, with the size filter I got, they still like the pond crew still recommended that I don't let the ducks have 24-7 access to it because they could still wreak havoc on it. Because they're just so messy, and because I have 21 ducks. You know, if I probably only had two or three, they could probably be in there all the time. But I also want to put koi or goldfish in the pond, and we don't want to like cause ammonia spikes for them by having the ducks in there all the time. Yeah. So it's honestly just incredible. So Aquascape is a company owned by Greg Whitstock, the pond guy. He's a really big YouTuber. I mean, he's just incredible. And then he essentially makes all of the pond products, like the liners, the filters, that kind of thing. And then I had Garden Steak Koi, who's like a local Aquascape dealer to me. They came and actually installed the pond, and they were so fun to work with. I just like couldn't leave the build area. I was just out there all day. So cute. Couldn't take my eyes off of it. I was like, I just want to see every little bit of this come together. And they used like so the their goal is to make the pond look as natural as possible, right? So they don't want you to see any pond liner, which they did and again, an incredible job of hiding the pond liner. Yeah. Yeah. And so they like they did have to bring in some like rocks, um, like I don't know what kind of rocks it is. It's it looks like peat gravel, but it's like bigger. I don't know if it was a river rock, maybe probably river rock or pond stone. Yeah, and so it's like rounded, so it won't hurt the ducks' feet or anything. And then they have these like big boulders that go along the outside of the pond. And so some of those they were able to take from my yard, which was really cool. That's cool because one, um having boulders in your front yard makes it kind of unusable. So the fact that they were able to take some of those boulders away, especially the really big ones, now I like might actually have a front yard potentially in the future. So that's great.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Loved what they did with the big rocks. Like, I thought that that just made it made it look so like mountainscape and like beautiful and natural. That's what I've attempted to accomplish in my earthen pond, but your girl can't pick up those big rocks. So I have to pick up the small rocks and utilize those and just like add a ton. I just have my husband who is fairly strong. I will give him that. So beautiful. Like, I absolutely love what you did there. I love the waterfall. It was so fun to watch the ducks jump down it. I saw it on Garden State Coys page. I was I'm so excited for you. This is such an awesome installment, and it's such great enrichment for the ducks. It's so, it's so awesome.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

One of my neighbors came over last night and he was like, I could hear the pond from my house. And it sounds great. It's just like that stepping into nature. It's such nice flowing water background noise. I just, I just love it. And so at the beginning of this year, speaking of the rocks that I that annoyed me, I posted a video and I was like, my 2026 goals for my hobby farm. And I was like, I really want to get rid of this rock, but I don't want to buy a jackhammer, but I really want to get rid of this rock because it was like right in front of the duck pen. And yeah, that rock came from under the duck pen, but when we were putting in the underground fence, we like pulled it out with we rented a mini excavator, but then we couldn't put it back in because it was a giant boulder. These guys came in with this big excavator and they just like pick it up, move it, put it in the pond. I'm like, wow, it was awesome. Must be nice. That was incredible. So I am just, can I be so honest? I'm just living my best life right now. Like, I just want to sit out there all day. Like this pond is it's just absolutely incredible. Like, I couldn't have asked for anything better.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

As a as a fellow waterfowl lover, like I can imagine how excited and like that would be me. Like, I that would be all I wanted to do. Like, that is the most peaceful and amazing thing and so much fun. And just like in general, like such a beautiful and relaxing thing to have in your backyard. Like, yeah, I was so excited for you.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

It's definitely okay. The pond is for the ducks and also my future goldfish. It's not like meant to swim in, but like I really just want to get in it. Okay. Like, it's not meant for that, but like it just looks like it would be so nice just sit in there.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

That's how I feel about my muck pond every once in a while. I'm like, you know what? It's really hot outside. I might jump in that, but that is amazing. I'm so excited for you and the docks. I seriously, it brought so much, like it looks gorgeous. Like, it just brought so much life to your backyard. Like, I it was so fun to watch that get built. I know.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

I still have so many more videos about it to post. I'm not gonna take up our whole episode talking about my pond. We'll see. I will try to get Greg Woodstock, the pond guy, to come on the pond cast. We'll see what I can do because he is like the pond expert. I think he would have a lot of insight into what you need to do to make a pond with a filtration system for ducks.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Love that because I have been for years. I've actually had pond people come out. Your girl is cheap. Let me tell you something about me. I will like I we built that pond out of pure desire to not spend money. But valid. Yeah. The I had like a pond guy that I knew come out and like help us out, and it was just so hard to like really get his opinion on filtration for waterfowl because he just was so unfamiliar with it. Like he was used to doing small-scale like fish filtration and stuff like that, but he really was so unfamiliar with waterfowl. But Greg, the that does the aquascape, like his filters seem to be his whole thing that he he really knows well. So I feel like he would have a lot of insight. It's a conversation I've been dying to have for the longest time because of the fact that I've looked into it so many times. And I mean, box systems seem to be like the hit that I hear about the most. But I still, I mean, eager, I don't know how to I don't know how palms are.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

And it's still different with ducks because we were like, should we put pond plants in? Should we not put palm plants in? Because like if we had palm plants in there yesterday when I released the ducks in there, they would have just ate them all, and then there would be no palm plants. So I have to like come up with a way of like, I would like palm plants in there, but like you can trial and I need to grow them out first and then like then put them in. So that's a couple.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Trial and error. That's how I do plants in my pens. Like, people are always shocked that I do plants in my pens. And that's because here's the thing, and I'll say this here, because everybody always asks me to do a video about like what plants are in my pens. Some of them are toxic mildly, okay? And that's the ducks are smart. That's the thing that people don't understand. People think that if a plant, yes, there are plants that are toxic that if your duck eats them and your duck actually might eat them because they're palatable, and then it could get sick. I look for unpalatable plants. So one of the things I use heavily in my pens is juniper. Juniper is mildly toxic to ducks. However, my ducks have never ate it. They taste it and they're like gross. Also, realistically, juniper is so mildly toxic that they would have to sit down and eat an entire bush in like a 15-minute window in order for it to be problematic. But they nest in it and they love it for nesting. And so I put it in there. But I do trial and error. Like I introduce it to them, I watch them, I see how they're interacting with the plant. And juniper literally, every single time I buy juniper or put it in, they nibble it and they go gross, and then they just nest in it. And they use it for like natural nesting things. And so I don't post about it online because God forbid, I tell somebody my ducks don't eat it, and then their ducks do for any of the above reasons.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

One thing that I found really interesting is because like when I was growing up, we had like hundreds, if not thousands, of daffodils in our yard. Like, I don't know how that happened. Someone probably planted a few and they just like expanded. And so I was daffodils I are are also mildly toxic to ducks, and I was always like freaked out about it, right? But so I did some research into it back then. And what I learned is that like they're really since they were outside of the duck's pen, the ducks weren't going to just chow down and eat piles of daffodils. However, if, for example, there was no enrichment at all in their pen and they were bored and they there was just daffodils in their pen, then yeah, they probably would eat them.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Or if they didn't have food. I think food is the biggest thing. If they didn't have access to feed and they were really, really desperate, sure. But birds are that's why they survive. Otherwise, there's plenty of plants in nature that are toxic, and if birds weren't smart enough to not eat them, they'd all be dead.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

You know, like they know the drill. So also, I think people sometimes don't really understand the difference between like something as mildly toxic if consumed in large amounts versus something as like immediate death. Um that was actually like a a big uh like controversy in the dog community recently on on the internet. I don't know if you saw, but really no, there was um a lot of posts circulating about like don't bring your dog to tulip fields because if they touch the soil, they could die. And then like the British like poison hotline had to like put out a statement and be like, that's that's not how that usually works. I mean, like if they have an allergy, like okay, but like thousands of dogs get their Instagram photos taken in tulip fields every year and like they're fine. Now, like I if they were eating the bulbs, then yeah, you could have some issues. But it's kind of interesting just to see, like, in general, how people will hear that something is mildly toxic and like freak out about it. Cause like I have lilies in my yard, they were here like when we moved in. I think they're called ditch lilies, they're like the orange ones, and they like spread everywhere. They're like actually really annoying. Yeah. Um, I know those. And I've definitely seen my ducks like put their mouth on it, but I've never seen them actually eat it.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah, so you just have to be super safe with it and you have to watch and monitor and see how they react to it. And I've done like trial runs, like, I'll go buy one plant. I try to always stay on the mile, like I wouldn't put anything severely, I wouldn't even do a test run with anything severely toxic. Right. But if it's like a plant that's hardy, I think that's the biggest thing I look for. If it's a plant that's like, like I wouldn't take a mildly toxic plant that's fragile. So they could like rip it up and eat it quickly and consume it. Whereas like juniper or like some of these like evergreens that are like really tough, um, they're not gonna eat that quick, even if they did. Because I know how much ducks eat. They can't really rip and tear up and do all that. So I always pick, like, if it's a hardy, mildly toxic plant, I'll give it a try. I'll sit and I'll watch them interact with it. 99% of the time, they're not interested. But I would imagine there's probably some pond plants out there that are not as palatable to ducks. Because I mean, to be honest, a lot of water, like if you think about how a wetland operates, a lot of the foliage in a wetland has probably adapted to not be palatable to ducks because ducks, in a way, are kind of their primary predator.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

The one thing that you do have to keep in mind when getting pond plants is that some pond plants are really high in oxalates, and oxalates can inhibit calcium absorption, or I think they like bind to calcium and then um render it useless. So you definitely, if you have laying hens, you don't want to go too heavy on pond plants that are high in oxalates. But common like things that people give ducks that are pond plants are like duckweed. Um, I think there's a plant called pickerel, or yeah, I think it's called a pickerl plant. My ducks really like water hyacinth. I believe that does have some level of oxalates in it, but not as high as like water lettuce. So, yeah. Interesting. We will have to do a whole episode. You will have to.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

We'll have to talk about infoliate.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

So, what has been new with you this week?

SPEAKER_00 13:43

I take back everything I said on last week's episode, by the way. So which is a good thing. I'm back at Chrissy's bandwagon of don't assist your culducts. If they're pet quality, they'll be fine. I don't know what went wrong with my first two hatches, but I just had like an 85% hatch rate. I'm so happy for you. It was so awesome. So relieved.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

You were so stressed, and like you genuinely were like, should I be assisting every egg? And I was just like, I mean, in your specific case, yeah, might have been what was necessary. But I'm like, in general, no. Like, I'm like, Emily, you've never had this happen before. Like, I think something went wrong during incubation, and that's what led to that for you. But in general, you don't gotta be assisting them, especially if they're pet quality.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, I was like, that was awful. I didn't, I don't, I think there was something going on with just my first couple batches, and then this one went how I remember them going in. So I was like, I feel so much better right now. We did that, and I was just like so convoluted. I was like, my god, like is this what people are talking about every single time? But yeah, we have here actually, since Didi's putting the ducklings in the box right now, I could show a couple on here. Um because this hatch was really cute. There was an interesting turn of events in my female ducks using their yeah, using their cryptic female choice. Uh, because all of a sudden Gimli has father, or not Gimli, Goku is the father of all of these babies. There's very few of Gimli babies, which is interesting. It's cool because of the fact that I have blue and a pencil as my drakes. So it's very obvious who the father is, depending on if there's blue involvement, because you don't get that out of my pencil drake. So we got a lot of grays. Okay, I know. We got a lot of grays. So cute. This is actually a slightly duskier gray. I think it's gonna look like olive. It has like the fully, the fully dark. It's a little bit lighter than I think olive was, but it I was hoping it was actually gonna be darker than this. Let's see who else we got in here. This looks like it's a little penciled. Oh, it's so cute. I love pencil babies. So we got quite a few. Quite a few penciled. It's a little a little blue. This is like I want I I want a blue magpie so bad. I think I get a lot of them if you ever want one. I got another Pinoli baby. So we have another, this is a little blue babed. This person's getting such a fun order of ducks, they're getting like such a nice little array of colors. Yeah, that's so fun. This is eight. Alright, this is number eight for them. So they got eight total. There's a couple repeat colors because I didn't get quite as many as I'd like of each color, but yeah, so that went much better. I no longer feel stressed about my call ducks. I was questioning everything about my breeding projects. My breeding pens are going well. I'll introduce them to Minno. I mean, this is good. My my hope stead updates is gonna be a duck. You guys get to meet ducks because there's a lot of ducks in this room right now, and Didi happens to be here to hand me ducks. Could you get me? I don't think you told me that you named her Minnow. So the Silver Flock, because Ann Shoby, I'm trying to name them like after the foundation ducks. So there's like the Breakfast Club flock because of oatmeal and omelet and tuna and bagel. Hi, Minnow.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Oh, that's like, I think that's how they name like show horses. They like take parts of the parents' names to like give the baby a name.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

So the silver breeding flock, which I think I told the podcast folks that I was gonna be doing a silver breeding pad, is going to be the fishbowl flock. And so I got a silver hatchling in my last hatch, and its name is Minnow, to go with Anchovy and Sardine. And I'm hoping this is a boy. Minnow is a cutie patootie. Minnow's huge. Don't you feel like I just hatched this dog? I feel like I just hatched this thing. So that one's staying here. That will definitely be either if it's male or female, it will definitely be in the breeding pen. Hopefully, it's a male. Otherwise, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Because I need it, I need a Drake in there. Should I talk about sweet potato? Yes. Okay, I'll have Dee Dee get sweet potato in a second, but I have this little blue fawn that I've been growing out because I don't have a blue fawn. Chrissy was a bad influence, and she was like, You don't have a blue fawn, you'll have to keep one. So I kept one for myself and I'm growing it out with peanuts, and I've gotten so attached to this little duck, and if it's not a female, I'm going to ball my eyes out. I love this little duck. I'm actually really excited to show it to you right now because it has really pretty feathers coming in. You could tell me if you actually think it's blue fawn because I've never really seen one in person. Sweet potato! It was an awful way to hand off a duck. Is that with blue fawn?

SPEAKER_01 18:07

I can mostly identify blue fawn actually from the back because they get more like silver feathers compared to um grays. I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah. Blue, like up on the wing. Yeah. That's oh, sweet potato loves to poop on me, though. I'm really scared right now. But this is sweet potato. This is my baby that I'm really, really hoping is a female. I actually texted Scott and Evan this morning, and I was like, if anybody could tell early it's you, what is it? I was like, look at it for me, please. I've been like losing sleep over that duck. I'm so attached to that duck. But um, I've been telling Chrissy out the whole time. I've traumatized sweet potato the entire time I've had her, and that's why I'm so obsessed with her. Because sweet potato came to me and a group of hatchlings that I actually bought back in order to get peanut. And when I re-homed or I sold a bunch of those hatchlings off, sweet potato was devastated. Like she just screamed and screamed and screamed because she just was with Peanut, and she hated that. And so then I got more hatchlings from one of my hatches, and then Sweet Potato was happy again because she had all of these friends. And then I sold them all, and then Sweet Potato was a get-alone with peanut, and she was just looking at me. Like she'd be in the brewery and she'd be like, Did you really just do that to all of my friends? And I did this to her several times. And then finally I got the geese in. And since the geese were so small at the beginning and my grow outs of my standard flock, which is what I wanted to move my geese to, were so big. Put the geese in with sweet potato and peanut. And peanut is very peanut-coated. Peanut does not care what's going on in the brooder. But sweet potato was then very attached to the geese, and then the geese got too big, and so I and they were chewing on sweet potato, so I had to take away the geese, and sweet potato was devastated. And so then sweet potato was living with a divider between her and some of my hatchlings that I was growing out a little bit. And yesterday, and Minno was in that group. Yesterday I pulled the divider because I was moving ducks around to like organize them better. And Minnow ran over to Sweet Potato. And I said, you know what, sweet potato, you can have it. If that duck wants to live with you, it will stay with you because I actually know it's staying here. I will not take it away. And so now sweet potato has Minnow, and she seems very happy today to have a new friend. So I love the name Sweet Potato.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

That was such a good name.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Just so everybody knows, if sweet potato turns out to be a boy and I do not keep sweet potato because I am done with drakes. I'm not taking one unless it's for a breeding pen right now. I will reuse the name Sweet Potato. I'll make sweet potato 2.0, I'll grow out another blue fawn, and maybe I'll even traumatize it a little bit so that I have the same vibe. Did I?

SPEAKER_01 20:40

I don't even remember. I've just been so busy recently that I don't even remember if I mentioned that jelly bean is in fact a Drake and we got the DNA test back. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

You did. You mentioned it on last week's episode, I think. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Chrissy was distressed. I have not uh had a chance to make an official gender reveal video for the for my main page, but we'll get there eventually. Chrissy was distressed. She texted me and she goes, I'm gonna vomit.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

It's a boy. I was like, that's how I feel about sweet potato, which ironically I didn't feel that way until recently, as like I've gotten to know sweet potato. And I've potentially been kind of hands-off with this group just because I'm not sure who's gonna stay and go, and I didn't want to get like super, super attached. But sweet potato found her way to my heart. And now I can't live without that doc. I need that duck. That's just how it is sometimes. It really is. Anywho, um, I feel like that's the longest we've ever spent on homestead updates, but they were happy updates. I know. Good things. So that's that's nice.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

So moving on to our topic of the day, we want to talk about some things that we keep in our duck first aid kit. But before we get into that, we have a message from our sponsor, MetzerFarms.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Metzro Farms actually perfect timing because I have MetzerFarms Vitamuts in my med kit, and it is my favorite tool in here. Let me see if I can pull mine out. Vitamuts? Seriously, if you keep water. Waterfowl is the best thing that you could possibly have in your med kit. It is my go-to with pretty much any situation that I have on hand. It's my first line of defense, whether it's sick, heat stroke, they've been under a lot of stress. It's great for all of it. What I love about it is it contains all of the nutrients required for waterfowl to be strong and healthy. So you can rule out so many vitamin deficiencies, including niacin deficiency, because it has all of the niacin needed to cover waterfowl, all in one item, which is awesome. I really don't think anybody has ever done this with waterfowl specifically in mind. So this has eliminated my need to break open. I'm sure you used to do this in the past, break open the niacin capsules and like dose it. It made it so I don't have to do that, which saved my life.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Truly, my favorite thing about this product is that it was formulated with waterfowl in mind because I don't think we had that prior to this. So I always use this if I get shipped in ducklings. I always give them this immediately just to give them a boost after the stress of shipping. I'm a huge Vitamats fan. This is always going to be something that I keep in my first aid kit and something that I reach for often when it comes to minor little things like heat stress, or if you're just like, I don't know, I'm a little worried about that one kind of thing, you know?

SPEAKER_00 23:15

If I was a wealthier woman, this would come with all of my hatchlings that I offered out. I truly believe, like I think everybody should be using it in the first week of life. I use it always in the first week of life, whether they're shipped or I hatch them myself, just to get them off to a strong start. I love this stuff. Yeah, I would love to hand this out in all of my hatchling orders, but your girl is out of budget. Yeah. I totally get that. I added it whenever people buy hatchlings from me. This is in the care instructions. It's one of the things that I recommend people do for the first week of life. So it's in there. I always tell people you can find it at your local tractor supply. It's amazing. And it's coming straight from the hatchery that is our waterfall experts. So they know what they're doing. We love this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yes. And if you don't have a local tractor supply, you can also buy it online at MetzerFarms.com, which I will have linked in our show notes.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

And while you're at MetzerFarms.com, you might as well grab yourself some of their little ducklings and geese that they have available. Yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Because they will ship the Vitamats just like underneath the bedding in the box. So like you might as well grow math, you're you're saving money on shipping, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:20

So otherwise you would have had to pay for the shipping of the Vitamats, which is silly if you don't just include more ducks.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

That's how I so just get more ducks. That's our advice. So when it comes to a first aid kit or a med kit or a vet kit, whatever you want to call it for your pet ducks, there's a few things that are just like the absolute core basics that I believe everybody should have on hand. And then there's also some things that are like you might need this item, but specifically for this situation. And I don't want anyone to ever feel like, oh my goodness, I need to go out and spend $500 to make a a med kit for my ducks right now. But like I think it's good to have like a baseline of things and then add to it as as you need. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah. I think that as you go, you find yourself using a tool a lot at it. You know, you don't need to get everything all at once. There's some core things that you definitely should just have on hand. It just makes life easier. Uh, but I think my med kit, and I know Chrissy's med kit, is a cultivation of things that we found that we've needed recurrently over time. Um, and really quick, this is a tip that I recently did. If you're gonna have a med kit or anything like that, I think a lot of people just like store it around in places. I recently converted to putting it all in a first aid bag. This is the best thing I ever did for myself. Yes, have it all in one place that you can easily carry to go out to the pen saves your life, I swear. Because I was so sick of treating birds and being like, where in my house is this one medication? For me, it's always terramyasin because the tube is like this big. So I was like, where is this one medication? Like, I need it, and I kept losing it. And so I was like, you know what? I'm gonna stock a full. I call this the BLS bag when I worked in emergency medicine. The BLS bag was the basic life support bag, the bag that we carry in. So, like, if you ever see emergency medical people carrying those bags, they look like this, but it's my bird life support bag instead of basic life support support bags. So this is my BLS bag of everything that I keep.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

So this is like my grab and go first aid duck box. And then I also have it's a Happy Hen Treats storage container, which is like the size of a small metal trash can, like the small ones. And that is also filled with med kit supplies. I've just gathered a lot of things over the years, you know? But this is my binge. Something is wrong. Grab the box, carry it outside. Box.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

The one thing I will say, um, if you're like trying to budget, like what should I buy now and what should I wait on? Always order in ahead things that you might need in a pinch that potentially need to be shipped. It'll save your life because it's the worst when you're waiting on some kind of medication you need for a treatment because you're waiting on it being shipped in. Most of the stuff that you need in a pinch, you can find at your local tractor supply. So if you have to find a place to save money, you know, hold off on those products and wait until you actually need them. Like, I don't keep Selenium Vite E on hand because I know I can grab it if I need it, if it makes sense. So why spend the money now and potentially let it expire? Whereas it's right down the road. I'm gonna preface this. So me and Chrissy, Chrissy keeps hers in like a fox and it's very chaotic. Trust me, I used to live like that. I organize mine. This also comes from my work in the medical field. So I organized mine like I structured my medkits. So we're gonna use mine as an example and we're gonna run through it so that we stay organized instead of just like all over the place. So you guys can hopefully follow like the categorization of these properties. I don't know if you keep these in your medkit, Chrissy. Bands. Leg bands?

SPEAKER_01 27:52

I actually keep those inside my incubator. That's why I store them.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

I'm smart. I keep leg bands in my medkit. This is just a small tip. If you have a lot of birds that look the same, and potentially you're not the only person that will be administering medication, or if you ever have like a pet sitter that doesn't know your birds' names, band your birds that's getting treatment and write down the band number, and that's the bird that gets the treatment. So it's very clear and transparent. That's why I keep those in here. And I'm just gonna spin this around and show you guys. Also, this is boring stuff for now, but gloves. Gloves all the time. You never have a glove when you need it. I swear to God, do you remember when I was dealing with beans' prolapse? Yeah. And I was like, I just need a glove for my mental health. I do not want to touch the danger noodle directly with my palm. I need help so fair. Gloves. Now I always keep them on lock. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

So one thing that I just want to mention that you can't really put in your med kit, but that you should have is simply a place to put your duck if something is wrong and it needs to be isolated from other ducks. So for me, that's literally a pop-up dog crate, dog kennel. It's like it folds up flat and everything, so it's really small and easy to store. I think I got it like pretty cheap at Walmart, but just somewhere to put them. Because you don't want, say, your bird has a contagious illness. Like, where are you gonna put it? Like, think about that in advance before you're in the situation.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

We actually, because of just everything we've been going through this year, we've we've had so many birds that we've had to treat, isolate, whatever. We are in the process of revamping our basement to have a designated bird hospital area that has all of my stuff, everything I need, and it's always set up so that we don't have to like screw around and try to make it happen in an emergency because that is my least favorite thing is when I'm sitting there and so like a bird is critical, and I don't have what I need set up, and then DD's trying to set it up and I'm like angry at him because he's taking forever, and he's like, Well, I just had to set up a whole X Pen with the tar. So we're in the process of actually making one of those. One thing that I've been using that's been really helpful is actually ponds, like the rubber-made ponds from uh they're like deep, they're from tractor supply. I bought like two of them this week.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Water troths, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Yes, yes, I've been using those, and they are they're not only a great brooder, uh, because they're not as expensive as the galvanized stock tanks, but they're large, and it's like enough space. Yeah, there's like enough space in it for uh like a standard breed of duck where it wouldn't be like super cramped. Because I used to use the totes and I was like, they can't move, which sometimes is helpful if you're doing like forced rest, but like otherwise I feel so guilty.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Another weird item that I actually I wouldn't usually say that this is something that I think everybody should have until recently when me and Chrissy were using this, because I sometimes when you're trying to feel for fluid or like listen for fluid, especially if you have concerns like with EYP or egg binding, I can't always feel it because some ducks are just chonky. Some of them are just fat little things, and you're like, I don't know if you're fat or I don't know if you have fluid. But if you go to listen to abdominal sounds, which abdominal sounds are unmistakable, by the way. Like if I put this in anybody's ears, if they never used a stenoscope and I said, you know what, this is, it'd be like digestion. And it's muffled. This helps you actually be able to diagnose egg binding or fluid in the abdomen way easier, in my opinion, than just feeling around on the abdomen because of that muffledness that you get when it comes to inflammation over top of the GI system. So that's why I now think that everybody should have this. Actually, it helped me. Remember, I was worried about sprinkle. And I was like, I can't know if she's swollen, she's a little fat. And I took this and I listened to her and I heard her abdominal sounds clear as day, and I was like, all right, she's just fat.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

She's just so puffy. After your situation, I was like, okay, I need to add a stethoscope to my vet kit as well.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Also, it's like if you feel inclined, I think it's a really cool tool to start to get familiar with like bassine vitals in your birds. Like actually, before I had I didn't have this on my med kit until my really, really bad hypothermic situation. But actually, been taking some time to get familiar with the sounds of birds' lungs, get used to what's normal, what's not. Obviously, I won't totally be able to figure out what's not normal until I come across it, but you'll start to be like it's weird. So if if you feel like being proactive, um I think it's a really awesome tool. I'm actually really glad I have it. I pull it out, I feel like a lot now that I thought to use it. Oddly, I never thought to use this before. I don't know why. It's like I came out of medicine and I forgot these things existed. And so now I'm like, oh, this is great. I can hear everything that's going on in this room. What's your heart rate? What's your luck sounds like? Especially if you have somebody that's sick. So super cool tool. I just hang mine on the top of my med kit because it doesn't fit. Took this very intensely. I was so sick of losing stuff. So in the top compartment of my med kit, I have this is an un-sterile, like a non-sterile syringe. I actually like recurrently use this if I'm doing something that just doesn't require sterility. So it's it's a my dirty syringe. Sometimes I use it for like a non-injured eye wash. If I'm literally just using water because they have like a little rock in it. Um, so that's why that's in there. And then I have corseps and needle nose pliers. These I particularly use when it comes to blood feathers. If you have to pull a blood feather, it's really helpful to have some of these. Do you keep anything other than this in your tools?

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Tweezers and nail clippers.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Smart. I actually don't have tweezers in mine. I should add it.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Those things that are like in your house. Like if you needed tweezers, you could go get them, right? I just like to have a dedicated pair for the ducks.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

And then I have a thermometer for rectals. Uh, there's really no other way to get a temperature out of bird guess. Uh you can't really like put this under there. They can't close their mouth around it. So yeah, rectal temps. This recently was in the butt of ravioli and cannoli. So they shared their uh butt fluids for a day because we were getting to do it rushing. Lovely. They will be okay. They also eat each other's poop, so I'm sure they're fine. But yeah, this for rectals, really honestly, realistically, do you need to keep a thermometer in your med kit? Some of the stuff in my med kit is like, in my opinion, and I would say Chrissy's medkit, I'm sure, is the same as more advanced. And if you're gonna be doing that, you probably don't need to. You could probably just go with the vet. Or stop trying to solve the equation at that point. I don't think you really need to know the temperature. Although in the hypothermia case, it was very helpful. So there is times where it is helpful.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

There's definitely been times where like I have gone to a vet, the vet has handled it. I have learned the tools needed to assess a situation and been like, okay, I'm just gonna go buy this so it's in my vet kit, and if this happens again, I can handle it myself, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Yeah. And so, yeah, and I don't think you need to go super hard. Like, don't feel like if you don't have some of the stuff that, like, say me or Chrissy do um in our medkits, which I think our medkits are pretty much I probably identical, especially because if me or Chrissy find a good medkit tool, we like have each other and we're like, this is a really awesome thing that I use. So don't feel like you need all of this, and don't feel like you need to practice all of these procedures at home for sure. Uh, find out what you're comfortable with, really. You should have a basic ability to perform first aid, but you definitely don't need to have a basic ability to go above and beyond. Like sometimes I will do. I will do things that I don't know if people typically feel comfortable doing at home because I am comfortable. The other thing, this is actually a Chrissy installment in my med kit. This actually, I think it was last year or the year before. Chrissy told me about this, and I've used it a ton. It's a very helpful thing. I added this. I don't know if you have this in your med kit. It's in there because I bought it as a kit. I actually use this when I have a duck that's being like awful and I need to check an airway. I kind of like weasel it in there so I can look down. Because you know, it's really hard to see the back of their throat. Yes. I'll like go under and I'll weasel it in there so I can actually see down. And so I've actually used this for that because I've had times. Remember when tuna and bagel couldn't breathe? Yes. Well, tuna, I don't know. It was tuna or bagel. Or bagel couldn't breathe. One of the two of them. And I was trying to check if she had an airway obstruction because she had strider, and this is what I used. This is really helpful for cleaning out tiny little nares. Like when their nares are blocked and they're like not really successfully clearing it. Me and Chrissy both have had a time where our ducklings just had really tiny nares, and we use this to kind of just like poke them out and clear those nares. So this is actually a really helpful thing. Don't mess around with your duck's nares if you don't need to. Leave them alone, okay? Don't think that you really this is like a last resort, and you have to be really careful because it's very sensitive. Their bill's very sensitive. Yeah. So that's what these two items do. Um, this is kind of like my tools section of my med kit. The other thing I have is just a whole ton of syringes. You really can never have enough syringes. Syringes are used. They're used for like a handful of things, whether you have to give meds or you have to wash something out, you grab a syringe. Or you know what story I should tell right now? The time before I had this med kit, the time marshmallow was choking and I FaceTimed you. And I didn't have any syringes. And so she Chrissy's on FaceTime and Marshmallow's choking so bad on a worm that DD throwed her. He almost killed her. And I didn't have time to like go hunt around for a syringe because I was trying to get this thing down. And so, Chrissy, I think you I think after I was done with it, you were like, Did you just pour that down her throat? And I was like, I did. I sure did, because I had no choice. So I took, I think it was oil. So I don't remember what oil. Was it vegetable?

SPEAKER_01 37:19

We I think I I was like asking you if you had any kind of oil. And you were like, I don't think you had oil, like any kind of oil in your med kit at that time. And I was like, No, okay, well, if you don't know, it's like just use whatever oil, like she's gonna die. So, like, you can't let her choke. You gotta gotta use something to to flush her throat and get it down. And I was like, it might give her diarrhea, but like you just get the vegetable oil, girl.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Like, turns out whatever I used, I really don't remember what oil it was now, but I got it. Cause I I showed Chrissy like marshmallow after marshmallow. The amount of times that I've, I'm gonna say almost killed marshmallow, which is kind of true, has been pretty bad. Marshmallow and me have been through some times. She puts me through a lot, I put her through a lot. I don't know what our deal is. But so I poured it all over her and like luckily got like just like a small amount into her mouth to get the job done. Like she got got it down, was good, everything moved, she was good to go. But the next day I go back out there and I look at her and she has like full wet feather, and I'm like, So that was one of the few times I've actually had to utilize Dawn in like the traditional sense of like oil spill duck because I basically turned marshmallow into an oil spill duck.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

And uh I was like, Did you just pour the oil on her?

SPEAKER_00 38:36

It's like crazy. You didn't have syringe? No. Now I have so many syringes. Another, also, that oil situation is like another use of my unsterile syringe. Like, that's why I have this one in there so that I don't waste a bunch of sterile syringes in case I actually need them for like something that needs to be sterile. So this is like an olive oil syringe or something like that, like a food product or whatever, but poor marshmallow man. Me and Marshmallow last year particularly, like I should do a full since I'm doing the lore, I'm doing my duck's lore because when I get to marshmallow, everybody gets to hear how many times like I feel like I almost killed that poor duck. She goes through a lot. But that's this compartment of my med kit. There's a couple other just like general tools that I keep in here. Ziploc bags in case your medications are leaky. That happens to me all the time and it ruins like all the other medications in the vicinity. So if it's a leaky med, it goes in here. Super helpful. Notebook.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Or if you need to collect a poop sample.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Oh yeah. That too. Notebook so that you can actually write down the dates. Oh, I'm gonna cry. Close the notebook, don't look. That's so sad. Whatever, I'm gonna leave it for the moms. But keep a notebook in your med kit. Uh, so you can write down the dates that you start any treatments and what dates to discontinue or anything else important, like if you banded a bird. This is like one of the most helpful things that you can just have, whether it be in your med kit or just on hand for your birds, so you can keep track of stuff. Another key thing that both me and Chrissy keep needles of various sizes. I honestly don't think that this is something you need to have on hand, especially if you're like an entry-level like backyard keeper that isn't gonna be doing a lot of advanced procedures at home. If you're comfortable doing more advanced procedures, it might be something you want to keep. But I would wait until you actually find you need it to add it because realistically, right, it's not really something that you need to have on hand. I honestly mostly have this for my goats. My goats need this, so I have to get my goats.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

I I actually didn't have needles in my vet kit until I had to give antibiotics injected into the breast of one of my ducks before. And so the vet actually showed me how to do it and how to rotate, you know, which side you're putting it on. And like I did I want to learn how to use a needle that day? No, but I had to do it for the health of my duck, so I was like, okay, we're having these on hand now.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

If you are gonna keep them for any reason, just make sure you have like a basic understanding of needle safety. Do not prick yourself. You're not like you know, the whole drill. And make sure you're properly disposing of them. That's super important. You don't want to just be choked up.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

I bring mine to the vet to be disposed of in a sharp's container.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Well, you can also, I think you can order sharp's containers to keep at home.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

I want to say, and then you you could like there's like centers that take them. Do you have anything to add to like the tool?

SPEAKER_01 41:13

I keep a pair of scissors in there, but that's just because I don't want to like contaminate my kitchen scissors with duck.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

I think that pretty much covers it for the tools. Honestly, I might add scissors now that you said that because that's not a bad idea. But that is my tool compartment. So those are just general like items basically that I keep on hand that I might need. And now we'll get into the actual good stuff, which is medications. And Chrissy and me might have some different, I think we probably have a lot of the same, but we might have some things that are different from each other in this area. The medication compartment goes a little crazy. Run through it. Chrissy, jump in with any medications that I don't have. Uh, we're trying to spare Chrissy, if you're wondering why we're using five. We're trying to spare her digging through her med kit. So that's why we're so much more. This is I wasn't like this before. If it wasn't for having three sick birds at once, that's what made me do this. Otherwise, I would have never probably done it, but that I was feta. I was like, I'm doing this all one week. I had expired antibiotic ointment. There's way better options than just basic antibiotic ointment, to be honest with you. I have this from before I had those options or something. I actually think this is expired. And the only thing that's really important, you can use this if you ever find yourself needing it, especially in a pinch and you can't order something in, say you need it the same day. You can find this at your local drugstore. Just make sure that there's no added painkilling properties, so no upsets, nothing like that. So, key antibiotic ointment, nothing else. So that's why I have this one from Walgreens. Another thing that is actually a better alternative, I have two options for this. I'm curious if you use something different. For bumblefoot treatment, I use manuka honey and silver honey. They're basically the same thing. This is a natural and proven remedy that has antibiotic properties to treat bumblefoot and is effective against staph bacteria. So I use these in treatment mixed with uh antimicrobial spray. So another we we both have so much of this. Badges and poultry care spray. This is an antimicrobial spray. I use it for bumble, or I also use it to clean wounds and stuff like that. This stuff is awesome. So I have like three bottles of it and an unopened bottle downstairs just because I'm like so paranoid about having it on hand.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Yeah, I have both the manuka honey and the vitration spray too. When it comes to bumblefoot, my product of choice is actually something that you can only get prescribed from a vet. I like Silver Silfaziazine cream. But it's one of those things where like if you go to the vet for it once and you get a tube of it, yeah, it's gonna last way longer than you need. So it's just I happen to have it on hand.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

You just inspired me to go hunt down a case of bumblefoot, see if I can make a vet appointment to see if I could stock up on it. Because every once in a while, that is why it's also worth it to take your birds to the vet. Because especially if it's a topical, you have so much more than you need. I love that. The best. This is a scam, in my opinion. Vetorex. I agree. I think it's stupid. I mean, so Veterx is the equivalent of VIX Vapor Rub uh for people. So like when you have a cold and you use VIX Vaporub, it obviously doesn't heal your cold, but it might make you feel a little bit better. Have I ever? It's obviously unopened. I have never used it.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

You know, a lot of people swear by it, but that just makes me feel like, okay, so your bird maybe had like a cold.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yeah, or like an irritation throat.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Maybe like you saw it sneeze once, but it wasn't actually sick, and you're like, yeah, the Veterx fixed it. This treats. It's something I also have on hand, but I have never had a reason to use it. But it's just like, okay, I'm gonna buy everything off the shelves, the tractor supply, just so I have everything just in case.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

Yeah, that's exactly why I have it. It treats nothing. I bought it before I actually researched it. Because I had heard so many people say, Betterex, it doesn't do anything.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

It's it's it's also one of those things where if you're like, I think maybe it might make people feel better. Like, because if you if you have, say, a respiratory infection and you need antibiotics, but you can't just buy antibiotics.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

When you need to get to a vet, so you're like, okay, the vet appointment is in, you can't get a vet appointment for a few days. I feel like people will start vetorex just to like make themselves feel better. That's what I would do if I like couldn't get a vet appointment.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

My bread and butter teramyosin. Teramycin. This is like I have so many bottles. I think I have three tubes of teramycin, mainly because I used to lose them all the time and buy more. This is to treat eye infections. It is an antibiotic, but this is an antibiotic I feel like we should actually talk about. This one is super easy to use, five to seven-day course. Eye infections, you're gonna see them all the time if you have birds. This will resolve it. I've never had this fail me.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

So you can't actually get teramycin over the counter anymore. So that is something that you would have to go to a vet to get. The actual law that went into place regarding antibiotics and and farm animals basically stated that all medically necessary, I think, is their exact legal jargon, livestock antibiotics had to be pulled from the shelves of like farm stores. So there are some things that you can still order online, not through farm stores, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Now, my advice would be to go to a vet and have a vet tell you what you need so you're not just like willy-nilly throwing antibiotics at things. But teramycin is definitely something that I have multiple tubes of on hand as well for eye situations.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Yeah. My vote is get it illegally, I guess. Sorry. Okay, I'm gonna cut that. I'm gonna cut that. So teramyosin mixed with some kind of uh oh while I'm talking about it. Saline, this is for eye flushing. That's why I keep this on hand. You can use contact solution, but you have to make sure there's no like cleansers in the contact solution, which is oddly hard to find, even though it usually says saline on the front. If you read the back, there's a bunch of other crap in it.

SPEAKER_01 46:47

So sterile saline. You can also get sterile saline in like little tiny like cap capsules. Yeah. And that way, if you're trying to avoid like cross contact with the bottle, you can just use those.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Yep. That is a huge one. We were talking about blood feathers earlier, and toena say you have a broken toenail, blood feather, anything like that. You need to stop bleeding fast. Quick stop, stiptic powder. Super important. You have to be careful about when you're using this. There are definitely times where you should not be using this. For example, I had an umbilical hemorrhage the other day, and you do not use this. You need to hold pressure and let it clot. There's there's a lot of things that this can make real messy if it's a small bleed or a small cut.

SPEAKER_01 47:27

That's like a very, very small, minor blood treatment. Also, if you don't have quick stop and you're like really in a pinch, you can use like cornstarch to stop bleeding on a toenail. But having like I have run into that situation before where my med kit is so unorganized that I don't know where the quick stop is. And so it's just easier to run into the kitchen and get cornstarch. But cornstarch is so messy when you like pour it out, and then I'm like, whatever. I'm just dipping the duck's foot in the lid of the cornstarch, and now it's my dedicated duff cornstarch.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Speaking of things that you might use an alternative in a pinch, I actually got this fast acting calcium on the recommendation of Chrissy. I've never used it yet, I haven't had to, but when it comes to egg binding or egg complications of the sort, you need a fast-acting calcium. Traditional oyster shells is not gonna do the trick that you needed to. You need something that's gonna move things along, right? So this is Chrissy's recommendation for fast-acting calcium.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

And I really like that one because if if you're in an egg binding situation, okay, a lot of the times egg binding shellless eggs is caused by a calcium deficiency, but eggs are also made up of magnesium and what's the other thing on there? Vitamin D. Yeah. And so that specific one has calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D in it, which are all important things in the making of an eggshell. So you're kind of hitting all three points at once, which is why I like that one.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

If you don't have this product on hand for anybody listening, it's unruffled RX, calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D. If anyone doesn't have this on hand, you need something in a pinch. Eggshells work, but you have to like bake them. So it's kind of not really that fast to get them to work. Tums work as long as you get your straight tums. Calcium carbonate is the only ingredient that it should say on the tums that you're using. No, like, I mean, really, I don't think cimethicone would do anything really bad except remove some gas from your bird, but like don't use it because I don't actually know that. I'm assuming cimethicone is a fairly gentle drug.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

I think one time I actually took a cuddle bone out of my birdcage and I was like scraping it off like it was a piece of burnt toast and putting it on top of the duck's food.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

Not a bad idea. I've used Tums a handful of times. They prefer the mixed berry. So I've crushed that up and put it into water a few times. I actually just did that when popcorn was sick. Safeguard! Because freaking pumpkin seeds don't deworm your poultry, period. Also, if you're watching.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

If you're gonna go to those scam mixes. No, those are don't even get you started.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

I said Chrissy, me and Chrissy hate those scam mixes. I got in a fight with a vet recently because they promoted it. And I was like, hey, so there's no actual science to prove that this is effective, and you're actually recommending treatment of its use in symptomatic poultry that will actually potentially die because of parasitic anemia, which is the symptom case that you're describing. And so I was like, this is disgusting behavior. So if you see a vet, they're lying. They're not that there's no evidence, there's no peer-reviewed science to prove that any of these poultry, natural herbal pumpkin mix, cap cap que son or whatever I can't say it, pepper mix. There's no science proving that any of that works.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

So what was really funny about that situation specifically is one, everybody probably knows that Emily and I are very pro-vet. But when Emily responded to this vet and was like, hey, like this is not, this is not research, like whoa, their response was like, it's a preventative, not a treatment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

And I'm I'm like, you just advertised this as a treatment. Right back out. I was like, no, that's not how you sold it. And it's very clear, just so you know, if you're seeing these ads, it's very clear that the intended, they're trying to teach you it's a dewormer. It says chicken dewormer on the bag. Yeah. Preventative my butt. Yeah. Oh, so bad. But yeah, uh, whether it be influencers, I mean, I I try not to come down on influencers over it because they might not know. But that's if you see them taking this ad, they're getting paid. It's a complete scam. It's not gonna do anything, especially if a bird is. The only reason I get so uptight about it is because if a bird is symptomatically ill with a parasitic case, you need to be treating it immediately. You need to reach for either irumectin or fendabezal or safeguard. And you're not harming your bird by giving it as a preventative.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

So I don't want you to think that, but like, let's not promote it as a treatment.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

No, it's a treat. It's a treat. You can use it as a treat. I would even remove the entire concept of I don't even think it's a preventative, you want my opinion. I think it's a complete scam, and I think they're trying to convince you that you need to be doing all that. You'll be alright.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

It's crazy how many different brands there are of this stuff now. Like, I have been I have been offered money to promote these products, and I'm meeting. Sorry, I can't do that. I browsed us.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

I do. I say there's nothing, there's this is not a safe, I don't think it, in my opinion, I don't think it's a safe marketing tactic. I think it's really messed up. And so I called them out right on the back. And that the last one that I didn't do. As you should, they were like, I completely understand. I was like, as you should. You know what you're doing. You know what you're doing is wrong. So yeah, safeguard, I keep it on hand. Waterfowl in general are very resistant to parasites. People always ask me about worming my ducks. I've never had to do it. I've never had a parasitic case within my duck flocks. If your birds, if your ducks are healthy and well and in a clean environment, it's very unlikely that you're gonna run into parasitic cases. If you do run into parasitic cases, 99% of the time I'm usually looking for something deeper that was why why were they compromised enough that they parasites won? Because they're built for those environments. So I'd never use this safeguard. The only time I ever expect to use the safeguard is on my chickens, and my chickens have not needed to be wormed as of yet.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

So chickens are much more prone to worming. And with the ducks, especially, just me personally, I would never deworm them unless I had a confirmed fecal float test that said yes, they have worms. Because why give them medication that they don't need? And that goes for my chickens too.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

Again, with the whole marketing tactic of that natural dewormer, people are like afraid to use this because of like their legacy. Which is this is this is like the mildest drug you could ever give to an animal.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

It's so like actually tested to be safe and you can still eat their eggs while they're on it.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

You'll be alright. It's not a big deal. Niacin, we just talked about this a little bit. This is actually from back when I used to have to break open my niacin. Now I use Vitamets and I don't have to worry about dosing niacin from the capsule. But if you ever find yourself wanting to keep niacin on hand, this is the kind of capsules that you want to find yourself because you do have to break these open. So you want a capsule that's like a plastic with a powder inside so you could dose it appropriately. These are my niacin capsules from back in the day. Back in the beginning of my waterfowl keeping journey. That pretty much wraps up the medications that are at least in this pocket. We talked about the vetrocin, obviously. We talked about my vitamins in the beginning of this video. I always have this on hand. It is my go-to. I will add this because I recently discovered that Eaton Patent Pasture has released a wound care spray. So I'm adding that. I'm actually adding that to my med kit right now because I just got this in the mail and it's a natural wound care spray. Really excited that Eaton released this. I'm actually, you know, it's really weird. Similar, honestly, similar components between the two of these. They're both, they both have antimicrobial properties for their active ingredients. I just like the bottle of this one better. It fits better into my med kit. Like, this is just such a bulky, like the whole NASL of everything. This is like a mister. So I feel like I'm gonna end up leaning on this one a little bit more than this, which would be crazy change for me. So I keep, those are my wound care sprays, which is another medication. I also keep for my chickens. This is prebiotics and vitamins and electrolytes by Grubly Farms. I use these for chicks. I actually have chicks right now, so these have been used. And when it's really hot outside, I use these ones for my chickens. You can use Vitamets for chickens. I just try to preserve my vitamins for my waterfowl because I love it so much for them and I prefer it to any like chicken products that are in the market. So that is why I use those heat packs. You know why I have these? Hypothermia. Power outage. Oh, hypothermia. I thought you could see power outage. Power outage, power outage is smart too. So that's why I have those in there is because we have that hypothermia thing, and I was thinking if there's any other things I could add in here just to be prepared for that. So I thought those aren't a bad idea. Also, yeah, Chrissy, power outage, genius. Last thing I keep in here is Epsom salts. Well, this isn't the last thing, but the last thing of like the medications section um is Epsom salts. I keep like a d this is just a baggie full of Epsom salts because I can never find the freaking bag of Epsom salts. So I know that I always have the emergency one if I ever need it. Epsom salts are great for like arthritic pain if you need to soak a bird that's in some pain or has some inflammation. Any cases of egg binding, Epsom salt baths are the go-to, so that's why I have it in there. Chrissy, do you have anything to add to the meds?

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Covered pretty much everything in my med kit. One thing that I also recommend people to have on hand is water-based lubricant. I've had to use that for prolapse situations, which is never fun to deal with, and that's why we also have gloves.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

I usually have it. I used it all on our boy Beanzie. Beanzie took up all of our lube. So we do not have any actually in here right now. I need to grab another bottle, but Didi really dreads going to buy lube for the docs. It's another thing. Um, the rest of my med kit is very boring. It's a whole lot of coban. This or vet wrap. I need to start calling this vet wrap. So I call it coban because I work when I worked in the ambulance, the brand that we carried was Coban. And it's the same thing, but so I always call it Coban because I'm used to saying Coban. I think that vet wrap is actually the brand too. Yeah, it's it's just what they're the same thing, basically, is all people need to know. It's basically just a bandage that sticks to itself so you don't have to tape it all up. It's super convenient.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

Yeah. I have so much if you were going to use vet wrap that you stretch it first and then apply it. Because if you don't stretch it first, it can constrict and that would not be good.

SPEAKER_00 57:19

Yeah, it's very, it's very sticky to it's really easy to apply this too tight. It's kind of an intense material. Um, you'll get a feel of it when you go to use it, but I keep a ton of it on hand. I keep two different sizes. This one is actually my preferred one when it comes to treating angel wing. Um, if I'm bandaging for angel wing, because this really covers the full duckling's body. Sometimes it's a little too big for some of the ducks, but um also for geese if I ever need it. So I have two sizes. I have the I want to say two inches and maybe like four to five inches. I don't I don't know sizes things, but that's what I have. I have a whole bunch of them. I get the cute little paw print. I try to get them a little design every time. And the last time I ordered, I got them paw prints. I think they had cheetah print and then they had camo, which this was a cool era. This is, I think, last year's bandages, and I think this was this year that I ordered in. Medical tape. Uh, the medical tape, I like if I ever literally have to tape anything, I always use this because the IV or like the clear tape. I don't know if it's what's the name of it. It's not I don't think people call it IV tape. I call it IV tape because I used it for IVs. What's it called? Whatever. You know, the clear medical tape that's a little bit tackier, it's a little bit stickier. I always get the cloth because the cloth is the softest and I don't want to like rip any like feathers or anything. So this stuff is super soft. And gauze is the last thing. Just roll gauze and a bunch of these square gauze pads. Uh super simple. I think everybody knows how to use gauze and when to use gauze. So I have a whole bunch of that. And that is it. That is everything that I have in this go bag. I have a couple other things. Chlorexidine, you use that for wound care as well. Yes. In a big bottle.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

Fun fact that I didn't know, my bad. You do need to dilute chlorhexidine. Oops. So if you keep that on hand, make sure you know that. Also, a lot of people use iodine versus chlorohexidine. Personally, my iodine spilled in my vet kit, so I never want to own that again because it made a huge mess. That stuff stains everything. Yeah. So I would I would prefer like anything else, truly. You know, one thing I don't keep in my vet kit though? Blue coat. Because blue coat is not safe for waterfowl.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

No, I blue coat blue coat for anything.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Blue coat is not safe to be ingested, or I should say, hasn't been tested to be safe for ingestion. And when it comes to waterfowl and them preening their feathers and constantly putting their mouth all over themselves, they're going to be ingesting it. So a long, long, long time ago, a friend of mine actually emailed the company and was like, hey, is this product safe for waterfowl? And they said no. And now their response is like, well, it's not tested, but a lot of people use it, which I find interesting. But I think you should stick to the safe side and not use that product.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

You really don't need to use that product anyway. Uh, I feel like don't a lot of people use it because they're worried about like cannibalization and it like deters it or something, or is that a different thing? I think that's more of a chicken thing because chickens are apparently attracted to the color red. No, that's what I'm saying. That's why you wouldn't really need it for uh waterfowl because they don't do that. Yeah, waterfowl doesn't have to munchkin.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

Before I got munchkin, she was actually like attacked by a weasel, like her organs were literally showing. And I and she was treated with blue coat. And listen, she lived, okay? She healed great. She lived a life I wish was longer, but she lived many years. So it's not like, oh my god, don't use it. It's gonna kill your duck. I just think there's so many better things out there than gelatin violet, which is also a known carcinogen. So that's all we got as far as our vet kits go. And unfortunately, we are just we are just spending so much time on this because there's so many things to get through with the vet kit that we are gonna have to skip featuring our breed of the week. But you guys know us, we talk about call ducks all the time. So we'll be back to talk about call ducks later.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

Yes, and I that that's a lot of information to get out. And since it's really hard to cover like the uses and all that in our short form content, I feel like this is gonna be really helpful for a lot of people who have further questions on products and stuff like that. So let us know if there's anything that you keep in your med kit that we didn't cover or if you have any questions on any of the things in our medkit. We can touch on all of these when we talk about various topics again, but this took us a lot longer than I expected it to. So hopefully you found that helpful. Be sure to leave us a comment on your favorite place to listen. Let us know how you like the show. Don't forget to check out our merch and also check out me and Chrissy's individual merch lines for Dunkin' Ducks and Cheese and Quackers Homestead. I want S to get back to her pond to hang out. So we are gonna wrap this thing up. We will not be getting to follower questions this week, but that's because we're gonna be doing a full follower questions episode. We'll save them all for that. We'll be covering a ton in that episode, probably coming to you soon. And that's all we got for this.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

Also, nope, it's not all we got for this one. I'm going to link in the show notes both of our links to our Amazon storefronts where we have all of our vet kit products. Because I know you have one and I also have one. Yes. And they may have different stuff on them, so I'll just link both. That's a great idea. Right? That's all we got for this one for real this time. Bye, guys.