Homestead Updates | Episode 12

Welcome to Episode 12 of the Duck Ladies Pondcast with Host Krissy from @DunkinDucks and Emily from ​@CheeseandQuackersHomestead ! In episode 12 we discuss updates on Cheese & Quackers Homestead and at The Dunkin Ducks! Emily discusses updates on Cashew and Krissy discusses her newest addition to the flock & Mr. Whip’s eye surgery. 

Table Of Contents: 

00:00 Intro

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everyone and welcome to the Duck Ladies Podcast episode 11. I'm your host, Chrissy from Donkey Ducks here with Emily from Cheese and Quackers Homestead. And today we are gonna be answering your questions that you guys sent in to our social media channels. But before we get started, as always, we have to talk about our homestead updates. So, Emily, what is new with you?

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Oh, I'm gonna talk about good things. I have good things and bad things going on on the homestead. Let's talk about the good things. I'm in the mood for that. So we got a Sebastopol Gosling for the first time. So we have a Sebastopol. I've never owned them. Erotic, I was remembering when I got the Sebastopol, you had asked in one of the qu the questions that we post to our regular socials in one of the graphics. You had asked what breed I have always wanted. And I was like, I kind of have everything I've always wanted. And like I feel like the only breed that I've like loosely considered, because I don't think they're a breed that I've been like, I need it. You know? Yeah. But they're a breed that I've been like, I've thought about for a couple years. And then our friend texted us and was like, Do you want to do a trade? And I was like, Well, I can't say no. So we got a Sebastopol. And then uh just the other day, if you guys follow us on our May channel, you saw that jelly bean has been like persistently broody this year. And she texted me again and said, Hey, do you want fertile eggs because my Sebbi's laid another clutch? And I was like, why not? Like at this point, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, hopefully you can get some of the different colors. That'll be so fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Yes. And the well, so the problem is, and I didn't know this about geese. Goosey goo took over our babies that we already had. So she's raising them now. I got to give up the responsibility. It was amazing. I wish ducks would do that. Like, so Goosey is now the mother, and she she watches over them and like takes care of them. And they're like three weeks old. So I didn't think that that was a thing, but I learned that that is a thing with geese. And so Goosey Goo's taking on those babies. Jelly Bean went back to sitting after I put her eggs back out. But my geese have like a very intimate relationship with my runner ducks.

unknown 2:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

And so you know how like when birds are like bonded, especially like two females are bonded, like they'll share nest time. Jelly Bean is sharing nest time with Waffles, my runner duck. And so I was like, I don't think I can give waffles goose eggs. And so since Jelly Bean keeps turfing the nest so that she could go diddle around doing whatever it is to Waffles, I told Amber, our friend from A Little Homestead on the Hill, I was like, don't bring me those eggs. Because I think Jelly will kill them by deciding that her and Waffles are a bonded goose pair that's gonna raise eggs together. So she's gonna bring me the babies, and I'm gonna give, I guess, Waffles and Jelly Bean the babies, and they'll probably raise them together. I think Jelly Bean's in for a rude awakening when she learns that waffles isn't gonna help her. Yeah. Also, I feel like jelly bean is so stupid. Like I was like, I don't want this goose to be the mother, but Goosey isn't gonna do it because Goosey's very committed to the babies that she has. She might, because by the time those babies come, they might be like moved along. And Goosey, I think do they take like 35 days to have? Yeah, they take a long time. And also, geese raise differently than ducks. It's not just like the mother with the babies, it's more of like a community experience. So, like if you have multiple geese, like they're all somewhat involved. So I'm really hoping that goosey gets in there. Because if Jelly Bean raises these babies, she's gonna be like, and now we stare into the abyss for eight hours and don't use our brain at all. And like, so to put it into perspective, how just terrible at existing and just stupid Jelly Bean is, like, I actually don't think that goose ever thinks. I firmly believe that when those babies hatch, she's going to freak out. Like, she's gonna be so scared of them. And she's scared of like the most random things. And she just like when she was going around with Goosey's babies, goosey would like nip them to like redirect them and like move them around and stuff, but like not like bite. Jelly Bean tried to do the same thing, takes a big old chunk, goosey whips around and starts beating up jelly beans. But I think in Jelly Bean's head, she was like doing the right thing. I don't know what's wrong with that goose. I don't know, man. She's a very strange creature. But so I was very unenthused at the concept of her being a mom. But you know, maybe we'll get a bunch of jelly beans out of it. You never know. I don't know if I can handle a bunch of jelly beans because jelly bean is like low-key embarrassing. Like when we have people over, she goes and she like repeatedly unties their shoes. So she'll follow. But that's kind of so cute. It is, but it's very annoying because like one time our neighbor came to visit us and she was digging through his pockets and tying his shoes like over and over again. And like, no matter what we do, we couldn't get her away from him. We were like, stop. It was like having a puppy. We're like, jelly bean, go anywhere else. And she was just like messing with him. So if we have like multiple jelly beans, I think I might lose my mind because she kind of is like, she's a little special, you know, there's just not that much going on there. But other than that, Clintine and Napoleon are like moved into their halfway house. They're not, they're still quarantined, but they have like, I'm using a pen that I added as a grow outs pen so that they can like kind of start living outside. They're still separated from my flock and like not sharing water and feed, but they've been in quarantine long enough that like they're good. Um, and they're learning how to be ducks, which is very exciting. I'm so happy for them. Me too. Um, I was talking about it with a breeder this morning because I think both of us experience people coming after us for not utilizing local hatcher, like hatchers and like local breeders as much. This is exactly why I don't. Because there is no, like, there is no better birds than you will get from a good quality backyard breeder. There's no better conditions, no better birds that you can find on the market, but there's also no worse birds that you can get than those of a bad backyard small local breeder. And that is exactly what I went through. I spent $400 on these birds from a show line to have them not know how to forage, not know how to bathe, not be healthy. I think there's a mechanical issue with the Napoleon's butthole that I might have to take him to the vet for. Feet are like bizarre from being on a wire cage. They have like super long toenails that I'm gonna have to trim. I haven't done it yet. They didn't know how to forage, they had never experienced the earth. So they didn't like for days, they didn't forage, they didn't do anything. And it was so sad. And it's crazy. Also, the biggest thing was how ill-handled and little handled these birds were. And I could really tell because when I first got them, human hands were the most terrifying thing that they had ever seen. Like they would flush and fly into the ceiling and be so panicked, hyperventilating. And just after one week of me handling them, me handling them twice daily, because I don't pick them up unnecessarily because of how skittish they are, twice daily of me picking them up and putting them outside and bringing them back in, they've already gotten better at it. So that means that all this person had to do was interact with their birds twice daily, and they would be better with people. So that means they were having such minimal interaction.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

It's genuinely so sad how unfair life is for some of these birds. Because I've had I've gotten ducks from similar situations, and most of the time when I've bought in birds from like smaller breeders, I buy them at shows. So you can only see what their living conditions look like at the show, right? Um, and then you bring them home and you realize like, man, I I I can't believe this duck doesn't know how to forage, and I can't believe the toenails are so long, and I can't believe this, this, this, and this. And it's just like, I never want to buy from that person again. And you realize, like, man, life was so unfair for these birds, and like I wish I hadn't. Not that I wish I hadn't bought them because like I love them and I'm glad that I give them a better life, but like I wish I hadn't given that breeder money, which is one reason why I definitely prefer just raising my own ducklings, because I know that they've been hand-raised their whole life and they've never had to endure that.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

There can be long-term effects of that. Like, I actually have a real legitimate concern that Napoleon and Clementine will not successfully integrate into a larger setup with a larger flock and just the amount of like a large pond. Because right now they both have really bad wet feather, probably from lack of bathing access. And so my fear is that they won't be able to handle the pond. Granted, I built something out for them that if they can't handle life in that enclosure this year, they should be all set. I shouldn't have to worry about it. They could stay and depend that they're in right now because you know what's really messed up? It's still probably way more than they ever had. And so that's why I'm kind of okay with giving that to them because right now they are acting like, and it's making me very emotional. This is incredible. Like they are so excited to go outside, and it's so funny because when I go to take them, they don't like to be carried, but every day I think they're tolerating being carried more because they know they're going to be, and for the longest time, they were going to be in a tiny box. I just had them in like a play crate outside, and that's all they had. But they were so excited to be out there because for them, compared to like a wire bottom cage, just the earth itself was so enriching that they were they would like get out there and they'd both start dancing like crazy and like playing with the dirt. He yesterday, Napoleon, because I've been hosing them to try to get them to wet preen so that they because since they haven't been bathing on their own, so I've been spraying them with the hose. And so Napoleon really like fully experienced like muddy earth for the first time, and he would not stop tapping his feet. Like he was just like, oh my god. And he got a word for the first time because I had been giving them earthworms while we were digging and they didn't know what to do with them, they wouldn't eat them. And he finally got one and like actually consumed it, and then the whole day he was looking for worms, like he was so enthralled. Like it was great.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

And that's that's so sad because like typically when I raise ducklings, when they're at that teenage phase and they're able to go outside, that's when they start doing their tippy taps and learning how to find worms. And poor Napoleon, I mean, we don't know how old he is, no, but I think he's a yeast he's a full-grown adult and he's never been able to do that. So I'm happy for him. He really they really did land in the best home they could have.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

I'm they're like my little angel babies. Like I have such like a deep bond to those ducks because of seeing them like they they hate me, so I don't have like they don't have a close bond to me, but like I want them to experience life that like I genuinely have I don't think they have they've experienced. I don't think they've experienced treats. I don't think they've experienced the earth, you know, like the things that ducks love swimming, diving, all the fun things that ducks get to do. So I'm so excited to see them get that. It's they're like my project babies, but this is the problem. When you buy from a small-scale breeder, it should not feel like a rescue. I should never have had to spend $400 to rescue have a rescue project that's now on my mind for how I'm gonna get them to like next year or through a molt um until they can actually swim and function and be with the regular fock. Like, that's insane. That's not how it should be at all. And after this experience, because I do think the wire bottom crate and just like I I like I this is a probably a controversial stance, but I firmly believe, especially now after witnessing birds come from that kind of environment, that wire bottom breeding pens are completely unethical, and I will never purchase poultry raised in that environment ever again. Period. End of story. If that's how you keep your birds, I don't respect you. I'm like, I and I can't believe, like, I know there's gonna be a lot of people, and I think that there's some people that do it slightly better, and I don't think everybody has to hold the same opinion as me, if that makes sense. But after seeing my birds raised on the ground and the earth and seeing birds that weren't, the lack of enrichment in that environment is, in my opinion, so critical. And so that's why I feel confident now taking that stance.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yeah, it's actually really interesting. Not interesting. I don't want to say sad to me. One time I had said something about preferring to get my to preferring to own pet quality ducks, and someone had brought up to me that they were shocked that I raised my ducks on the ground because they didn't know that you could raise phantom ducks on the ground. And I was like, what do you mean? And they're like, well, in the show community, like everybody just raises them on wire pens. And I was like, you think they can't live on the ground? And they were like, Yeah. And that was like kind of eye-opening for me because I was like, Well, if you have a duck like sugar who has a plethora of health issues due to being unethically bred and having proportions that literally just like don't work, yeah, yeah. They're gonna have issues that lead to what's the word that I use for sugar? She's not as it's not lively. It's the word for like how well they live. Vitality? I don't know, whatever. So when you have a duck like sugar who has all these health issues, it actually kind of makes sense a little bit that you would have to raise them in a raised pen because of their health issues. But I think we should just not breed ducks with health issues so we don't have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

But here's my question: what does a raised pen offer that a solid surface it doesn't? There you go. That's why it's like that's why it doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

I think people do it like for ducks like sugar, because like sugar can't live in a large flock of other ducks because she gets picked on. Sugar doesn't like to swim because she has permanent wet feather. Sugar doesn't sugar can't preen all of her feathers. So, you know, she gets she she hides when it rains. So keeping her in a fully covered wire enclosure, I guess maybe that's why it makes sense to breeders. I still still think she deserves to swim, she deserves to forage, etc.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Here's the thing though, but the wire bottom, why can't you put her in an expound on the ground?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Okay, so I was actually just gonna say something in regards to that. I agree with you. Like, obviously, I keep sugar on the ground, but like one time I brought sugar to the vet because I thought she like hurt her legs or something, and it turned out she was literally just tripping on the grass because her legs are so short. Personally, I think we shouldn't breed ducks that have these health issues where you get to a point where like it starts to make more sense to raise them like that. I also think there are better and worse breeders when it comes to people who raise them and raised pens. I think if you are putting them on wire pens that have just galvanized wire, that is going to cut their feet way more than PVC coated wire. But either way, I think it's a sad life for a duck. I think ducks deserve to forage.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

There's zero enrichment in it. And I have to be so honest. Like, I I I'm if anybody gets offended by me having these opinions, I'm sorry. But this is my take- It's an opinion. It's an opinion. You're allowed to have a different opinion than me. I don't get offended by your different opinions than me, but genuinely, like, this is my take on it. I think it's rooted in trying to do too much with too little resources. That's what I think it is. I think it's really difficult to keep up maintenance on a lot of birds, especially if you're separating out a lot of birds. The wire bottom means the droppings fall through, the enclosure stays cleaner without you having to do much work. But it provides nothing for the bird. I think it's rooted in human selfishness. That's what I think it is. I think that it's entirely possible to build an enriching breeding pen. I just did it twice in one year. My breeding stock is gonna be happy. They're not gonna know that they're a breeding stock, they're not gonna experience a difficult breeding season. They're gonna experience, they're just gonna think, oh, hey, my pen's cut in half for this these couple weeks, but I still have a pond. I still have the earth, I still have plants, I still have a life. And that's the only thing they're gonna notice. They're not gonna be stuck in a little box for several months out of the year in with zero life to live in there except for mating. And so I have kind of a harsh take on it because I've thought about it like a thousand times, and especially since I got in Napoleon and Clementine. I'm like, there's no reason. Biosecurity is the only argument that you could throw that makes sense for this.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

But a lot of these people raise full-size ducks on the ground, but they won't raise their call ducks on the ground.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Well, because you can't, you simply can't put a full-size duck in a wire bottom. It's not gonna happen. It's it's just not gonna work. It would be a nightmare. They do it with the calls because they can, because you can get away with it.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Notice this year that I've seen more encouraging of breeders to raise them on the ground from other breeders who have tried it and they're like, yeah, it's a it's a bit more work, but it's working out really well. So they still are in like smaller enclosures, but they have dirt, they have enrichment, they have a way to clean the pens, they have an easy way to collect the eggs, and those ducks are so much happier. And so I'm glad that there are breeders out there who are using themselves as an example to say, hey, you can do this, you can enrich your ducks and still have a bunch of smaller breeding flocks.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah, and honestly, like one thing that I'm seeing, and this is like a pet quality, we could we gotta do an episode on this because we could talk about this long time. Like we're getting so sidetracked. But me, this is like a topic that me and Chrissy love. I think that people niche down their uh because call ducks have bad fertility. And one thing that I think is awesome is I think that you can expand that. I think that you could put more hens with one Drake and have a better road, better ratio and get away with it and still have 100% fertility. I am very confident. So I'm running one Drake in main pen right now with like 20 hens, and my Drake is young and robust, and my fertility is 75%. I'm gonna run my breeding pens probably one to seven, one to six, you know, like a good upper ratio. And I have no doubts that I will be hitting 100% fertility. Like I'm not concerned. Yeah. And I think that people can do that and give their birds more space, have a larger breeding flock, you know, and give them like reduce the amount of small pens you feel like you need to have. Because I think another reason for those tiny, tiny pens is because a lot of the show quality call ducks have issues with fertility. And so, in order to get good fertility, you're doing one to two, one to one. Yeah. And you're really like cramming it down. And so you need so many pens. Um, whereas I think if we bred, you know, like if we started transitioning, which this is a whole conversation in itself, into optimizing longevity and fertility in Culducts as a breed, you wouldn't need 75 wire-bottom pens. Give them white, yeah. A couple nice solid ground pens, have a larger ratio. Your Drake is gonna be fertilizing better, your hens are gonna be more receptive to it, they're gonna be laying stronger eggs. Improve the breed. You know what I mean? I think that's gonna help a lot. And so I have I'm excited to see next season when I actually do have more hens out there because right now I'm hitting 100% fertility, and I think I'm about to have a hundred percent hatch rate unassisted in my whites, which is so cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

So exciting.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

So exciting. And that's even cooler because oatmeal notoriously never hatched offspring that successfully hatched independently. And 100% of her offspring coming out of my incubator right now hatched independently without assistance, which means that cross-breeding oatmeal, which is a call duck that has some traits that are like really extreme. Not intentionally, she's still a pet quality call duck. She doesn't come from show lines, she's a hatchery bird, but you could still see this pop up anywhere, even in hatchery lines. You could get a show quality bird out of a hatchery line any day. Not saying that she is show quality because the show quality community has a panic attack when I say that oatmeal is show quality. She's probably not, but she's a good-looking call duck. She is, she has a lot of the traits that they look for. And because of her really short build genetics, she typically actually always hashed offspring that was a full assist. Like I was assisting from the get-go, or not viable offspring. The eggs that I sat from oatmeal, because she doesn't always give me eggs that I can actually set. This time around, cross-pairing her to omelette in a controlled way, omelet being a larger call with more balanced attributes, made it so that all of her offspring hatches without assistance, which is so amazing. Because I was mainly nervous about putting oatmeal into the breeding pen. Me and Chrissy were actually both nervous about this, that we would create more oatmeals. And I learned about crossing extremes. And so, like, if you have a bird that technically is like, and I mean, most people are doing this to try to get closer to the SOP. And ironically, I'm kind of doing it to get further from the SOP because I'm trying to do it to get closer to health, not physical appearance. And so, by crossing omelet, who's a very healthy proportioned duck, to oatmeal, I'm honestly probably gonna get some really balanced birds and birds that are capable of hatching on their own.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah. Which is what they want. I just thought of the word that I was trying to remember earlier, but I couldn't. The word is vigor. Sugar is not vigorous, and a lot of show line call ducks are not vigorous. They have a plethora of health issues, they have a harder time making it through winter and probably have a shorter life expectancy. Quite frankly, I'm shocked that sugar is seven years old. I never thought she would make it this far. I'm happy she's sure with us. But sometimes I'm just like, how do you have all these issues and you're still alive? Yeah. Because call ducks, specifically from Showlines, are known for being less vigorous. And that's not even just like my opinion. There are basic old-time call duck breeders who talk about this.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

And people don't like it when I say it. I have a friend who we've made friends with over the course of this year, because me and this man trade birds. I just gave him my rooster. I I didn't even tell you I got rid of my rooster. He pissed me off. I was like, first of all, this is really petty. The rooster was never supposed to be here in the first place, which is why I got rid of this rooster so easily. He was supposed to be a pullet. So he I just kind of held on to him and he didn't, I didn't, I don't need a Rooster, but I just had him, and if he did good, he would stay. If he annoyed me, he was gone. I don't really play when it comes to meeting roosters. They're the most annoying thing. So and there's a million out there. Why keep a bad one? So I um kept him for quite a while and he hated my crocs and it was driving me nuts because every time I would try to go in there to take care of the hunts, he would attack my crocs, and I really just wanted to wear my crocs. I know that's very selfish, but so then there was the whole croc thing. So he was already just kind of on my list because of the croc thing. And then when I put on those freaking bibs on my hands to try to stop them, the saddles, to stop him from damaging their feathers, because I was just like really sick of the rooster damage. And also, like if you let rooster damage go too far, like they do start to get hurt. So I didn't want it to get any worse. And when I put them on, the way he attacked them, like the poor, my poor little Banty Coaching girl was like fighting for her life. Like he was attacking her like she was a predator in the coop. Like he was just like, she's she's already stressed because she has this thing on her back. She's like waking out. Oh my god, I felt so bad. And so then that day I was like, I'm done playing this game. Because like I want their feathers to get better, and if I can't put these freaking saddles on them, like it's just gonna get worse. And I never needed him in the first place, nor did I want him, but he's just been here. And this guy has a bachelor flock, so he was like, I was like, he'll be fine there, it's whatever. And so I've gotten to be friends with this guy because I've done bird stuff. He has cashew and he has a bachelor flock of ducks, and so he's just a really sweet guy. He brings us maple syrup when he stops here to do stuff. I love him. He used to breed show quality call ducks. One thing I love about this man, this is the first thing he said. He's like, Yeah, he used to breed the show quality ones. He's like, the closer you get to the SOP and like the show traits, man, they go down fast. He's like, their fertility goes away, they're reproductive, like their reproductive issues get insane. You can't hatch them for anything. And every time he's here, I swear he brings it up. And I'm like, I love that you talk about it because so many people deny that it exists. Yeah. And it doesn't, it's just it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

It's wild to me, but I also think that part of it has to do with the raised pens. Because if you're raising, say you're raising call ducks in a raised wire bottom pen with a roof over it, how are you and and and they don't have access to a pond to swim in, they just have like a little, some little shallow water access. How are you gonna know that they have wet feather? You're not gonna know that they have wet feather because they don't get wet. Yeah. So I think that when I bring up the fact that like my call ducks, well, not my call ducks, but sugar specifically, like can't reach all of her feathers to preen them, and then breeders will say, Well, I've never had a call duck have those issues, and then I see them post videos of their breeding stock with these issues, I think they're just not seeing it because of how they raise their ducks.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

That's definitely possible.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Which is so sad. Yeah, like I also say it really, really irks me when people say that I've never had foot issues from raising my birds on wire pens because I've never gotten a duck that was raised on wire pens that didn't have cuts on their feet and overgrown toenails, which is so sad. I mean, imagine walking on wire and you have these delicate little webbed feet, and they're just consistently getting cuts on them and potentially getting infections in them, turning into bumblefoot. That has to be so painful.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Like, it's just sad. And and I think another issue that people have in general. Chrissy's so much nicer than me. She's like, maybe they're not seeing it. I'm like, maybe they're not looking for it. Like, I'm like, I'm like, are you actually checking your birds? You know, like there's a handful of like in the problem that people can have, and I I think that it's, you know, I'm really open to people's failures, if that makes sense. And I think that one thing can happen a lot is you don't want to make a change. So you don't want to see problems. And so if you're doing that, you're not gonna see the problems. And if you're looking constantly to make change, oh my gosh, you know who drives me crazy over this? Because I'm hyper aware of this human instinct, like to not want to see a problem because you don't want to do what that problem would mean, so you try to ignore it. Me. Do you know how many times I rebuild my pens? Do you know how many times I fix enclosures? Do you know how many times I re-predator proof because I find a problem and I want to punch myself in the face because but that's because I see a problem and I just see a problem. I because even if it means work for me, as many times as I want to tell myself that when I'm seeing a problem, it's not an issue. I always have to accept that it's an issue. If you don't want to see a problem, you can very easily talk yourself into something not being a problem. And I think a lot of people are doing that, and you know, you have to be able to remove yourself.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

I think you kind of gotta have friends to hold you accountable sometimes when it comes to that. Yes. Because like we'll text each other and be like, I don't even want to get into it. I don't I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about Mr. Whip's eye. But like I This is the perfect example of the times where you need a help big like. So to make a long story short, we'll get into it after I he goes back to the vet, but Mr. Whip is is blind. He had a what was it called? A ruptured eyeball. Yeah, retina. His retina detached. Yeah, a detached retina. And he was fine. And the vet gave me antibiotics just in case something went wrong, because like he can't see. And you know, he was doing fine, but then it started to look a little funky, so I started antibiotics. And it was on like day three, and I was like, Emily, should I keep giving him antibiotics or should I bring him back to the vet? What did you say? You were like, you should have bought me the vet yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

I go send me a picture. Because I'm thinking it's like a regular infection, like whatever, it's a little crusty. So I'm like, Can you send me a picture? Like, it's probably fine, like maybe finish the course and you'll be good. But like if it doesn't get better by that, and then Chrissy sends me the picture. And when I say I stopped and I was like, Oh, Chrissy. I said, Yeah, Chrissy, I think that should have been at the vet yesterday. I think you should maybe call. But like, it is true. Like, you're you're you're wanting to be like, this is just an infection. That's like that. I've done that too. Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Like, I'm thinking, okay, like we knew that this could happen. We knew that he's more likely to bump into things and not take care of his eye. So I have the antibiotics. I'm gonna start them. Like, it's gonna be fine. But like, it had only been three days, and I was like, Well, it's not getting better yet. Should I keep going? Should I hold out? And then, yeah, I sent the picture to the vet, and she was like, Okay, yeah. So he might be having his eye removed. It's so bad.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

I wish I could show the picture, but genuinely nobody should see that. It was jarring and it was disgusting. I was so gross. The perfect example of this is when you did this to me, too. Because do you remember after my drowning incident, I called you and I was like, Chrissy, I haven't even let them out of the coop because I won't let them go near the pond? And you were like, they have to swim. It doesn't like you have to put that away. Cause like immediately I felt like throwing all my ducks in wire bottom pens with no water. Because I was like, I was so traumatized. And you were like, no, like they have to go in the pond. Like, you can't take that from them. And so, like, you do need other people to hold you accountable. It's really, really hard to keep yourself balanced. Um, yeah. And also sometimes it just financially sucks. There's been a handful of times where I was like, I can't believe I have to rebuild this thing, but I'm seeing a clear issue with it. The pond is another really good example. How I just ripped out that pond and reinstalled a pond. Do you know how bad I wanted to cry? I had just spent hundreds of dollars. And like not even a month later, I'm ripping it out and redoing it and spending even more money because I knew there was an issue and I knew that I had to do something about it. I was like, uh, but me and Chrissy just went on a whole tangent. Chrissy, can you give us some homestead updates and then we will move on to the follow-up question?

SPEAKER_01 29:56

I'm like, should we like should we just make the follow-up questions the next episode? Whoa. So here's the problem.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Here's the problem with the podcast is I save all these things that I've wanted to tell Chrissy all week. And then like we actually get in the conversation because I've been waiting to talk about like wire bottom cages in Napoleon stuff with you. Like, I don't call you about those things because of the pod.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

So then we get into it. So we have to give the people the backstory of this episode. So we started filming this days ago, and then Sugar unplugged the Wi-Fi. Yeah. So now it's funny because now we're doing it again, and you just gave me all these homestead updates, but you didn't give me the update that you gave me three days ago. Because you're like, you've already told me. But now we have to tell the people.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Okay. Um, this is really sad update, actually. Gimli no longer lives here. We re-homed Gimli. I was able to actually narrow down the behavioral issue that caused the incident with the drowning to Gimli. And this is another example of holding yourself accountable when it's really, really difficult. And so when I figured out that Gimli was the problem, I told myself that if he or either of my Drake's hurt another hen, they're getting the boot. I have to. I can't keep playing this game. And so Gimli hurt Rabbioli again. And Ravioli had a really swollen vent. I had to isolate her and separate her. And he had so many favorite ladies this season that I, at one point, I texted Chrissy. I was like, I feel like I'm sitting on this until a hen dies and I should not be playing this game. Like I could, I felt it in my bones. The entire time since that incident, I was checking and counting hens every time I went out there because I was so worried somebody was gonna get hurt because of how Gimli was behaving. And so when Ravi only got hurt, I think it was like three more days, and finally I was like, I have to do this. Like as much as I love Gimli. And I started building actually to try to keep him because I was like so torn about getting rid of him. And I started building out, and then me and Chrissy were talking about it a lot because I was building out this little ice, like this bigger separation area, so that he wasn't just living in a box. But I told Chrissy, I was like, I'm never gonna trust him around a hen again during reading season. Honestly, probably even the winter because mating season starts like in February, and like it can seemingly start overnight. And so I was like, I'm never gonna trust him around a hen again. And him living in there is going to be torture. Like he's gonna have more space and be able to move around his pen, but the only thing he's gonna be do is pacing the fence to try to get into the girls. And so I was like, I I have a bachelor flock available. The guy who has cashew was willing to take Gimli. And what, like me and Chrissy were talking about is basically like it's kind of cruel of me to keep him here when there's a bachelor flock available with a duck that he already knows. He was going to live with cashew when he could live a full unrestricted life in a bachelor flock because he wouldn't be having these issues. Also, I wasn't going to rehome this duck to anybody that had hands. There was no universe where I was gonna let this duck become somebody else's problem somewhere else. Because I think he had like a performance issue that was causing him to have like these prolonged mating sessions that were really messing up my girls. I don't know what it was exactly that was causing that to happen. But yeah, actually, that guy that I gave him over to, he's the one that used to breed show quality call ducks, and he was super helpful because he said to me, He's like, if you don't do something about it, it's just gonna keep happening. He's like, I'll take him, he'll be fine here. And that's exactly what happened. I was so excited because they told me when Gimli got to see Cashew, Gimli and Cashew ran over to each other, started like chatting, and then they both like ran off and like went and played. And then I felt so much better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Yeah, but that was really tough. I know that this was like extremely, extremely hard for you because you thought about it for so long. You tried so many things. I mean, most strikes never get that many chances, and you just kept giving him chance after chance after chance because you wanted it to work, like you desperately wanted to keep him. Yeah, but at the end of the day, he was not safe around hens. He wasn't gonna be happy being isolated, and now he's living his best life at the bachelor flock. He's got his buddy Cashew, and he's gonna be happier than he would be if he was isolated from your women, ladies.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Cashew lives with a little white drake named Pee-Wee, and so it's now Pee-wee, Cashew, and Gimli. And that makes me happy. And the reality is, is when I rehomed Cashew, typically I always re-home ducks and pairs, right? So that they have a friend from their past home. But when I rehomed Cashew, I didn't put him with a pair. And that's rare for me. And it was because I was I was like so desperate to keep my boys. And so it was kind of like a full circle moment where I was like, Cashew's gonna be really like, he's gonna have a friend. I'm glad they're in a group of like three boys. Like it just worked out. I have not told the internet, like, I haven't told my followers because I'm like honestly, because what's gonna make me mad is the amount of people that potentially get upset about it. Because I'm like, one, you don't know him. He's my baby, and I'm the one that has to deal with the pitfalls of like the flock dynamic. Like, I have to be able to make these decisions, whether or not it's painful, say to the internet, like, I'm sorry, but like I'm here 24-7 taking care of these birds, and I have to keep them safe. And so even if it's hard because you get attached, I I it's really, really hard for me too. Like, I don't want to do that. But yeah, flock dynamics are really, really difficult, and you have to act on those situations. Because, like I said to Chrissy, I was waiting for a tragedy to happen, in which case could potentially honestly be worse.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Of the times that commenters will be upset about like re-homing a bird, they're either coming from people who don't have ducks at all or who have like an established flock that never has been had birds added or removed from it, or there's like three of them, so they don't totally understand the dynamics of having a large flock and having to make those difficult decisions, even though you absolutely don't want to. Because nobody wanted to have for him to be rehomed. You got him with the intention of keeping him for his entire life, but sometimes drakes especially are just really difficult. And that actually brings me into my homestead update. So I announced on the podcast that we had gotten Jelly Bean, my little call duckling singletons, DNA results, and I announced Jelly Bean is a Drake. It's gonna be hard. I'm probably gonna have the worst spring ever next year, but I'm keeping him.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

And then this was a hilarious, this was a hilarious conversation when we found out and you texted me. And I was like, Maple's gotta be tired. Like, he's gotta, he's gotta like calm down suit. Like, you can keep another Drake. Like, I was like, Maple is so old. Maple is like a million years old.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Like, I can't see my atmosphere. And Mr. Whip is separated with sugar all during breeding season, probably forever now, since he's blind. And so, like, really, I only have like one super young active Drake. So I was like, it'll be fine. Maybe it wouldn't have. Maybe I would have had to build a Drake jail in efforts to keep jelly bean. I don't know. But I'm never gonna have to know because jelly bean started quacking. And I was in denial of this. I thought I was hearing things, I thought that it was obviously the other ducks and it wasn't Jelly Bean making these quacks. And then the other day, Buck Dad says to me, When is Jelly Bean going to develop his raspy male duck quack? And I was just like, You're you're hearing those things too? It's not in my head. And so I took Jelly Bean out, separated um her from the rest of the the little baby ducks so that she would quack, and I recorded it, and she full-on quacked. And I sent it to Emily, I sent it to Scott and Evan, I sent it to one of my duck group chats, and I was like, guys, what gender is this duck? And they're all like, is that jelly bean? And I'm like, yeah, DNA tested male. And everybody said that's a hen. And I didn't, I didn't believe Emily. Like, she was the first person I texted, and I was like, so in denial because I'm like, the DNA test can't be wrong. And then you said you were like, I will literally shave my head if that's a drink.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

And I'm like, I said I'll shave my head if that thing doesn't lay eggs, Chrissy. Like, I was like, that is the most like clear-cut female I have ever heard. It was such a, it was such a quack too. Like I've been going through this with sweet potato, trying to figure it out if it's a boy or a girl. And I was like listening for these like flying notes, like little pitches differences, and that was just a whole female quack you sent me. I was like, Chrissy, that is a girl.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

If anybody sent me that video, I would be like, yeah, of course that's a girl. I just had my heart like broken when I got the DNA results and it was a male, and I was like, can I keep can I even keep him? And ultimately I decided to keep him. But like I had been so like, I love jelly bean. I love jelly bean so much that I was like trying to prepare my heart to like deal with a terrible spring next year. And I'm like, what if my sweet baby jelly bean turns out to be an aggressive Drake and then he makes me mad at him next spring? Yeah. And then so to find out that he is actually a she, I was just like, there's no way. Like my emotions were just like absolutely denial.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

You were like so messed up, and my favorite moment of it was when you were like, but he tested male. Like, what happened? Like, do you think my DNA got on the test? And I said, Chrissy, you're not a male duck. Yeah, I forgot for a second.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

I was like, uh, yeah, you're right. Like, you were like, yeah, that makes sense. I'm not. So I think what happened is that I was too lax about this DNA test because she was a singleton duckling. So she's the only duck I'm testing. So I still like put the clippers in like alcohol, but normally I'm like way more sure to not cross-contaminate because I'm doing multiple ducklings. This time I was just kind of like, here's a coffee filter, here's the nail clippers, same clippers that I use to cut beep beep's toenails. Um, it's beep beep's DNA.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Yeah, it probably is. Not only is he a male, but he's also a partridge.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

So I did reach out to the DNA tester because I was like, can you just give me advice for what I can like do better in the future? I was like, I I I wanted to be abundantly clear. I was like, I don't think this is your fault. I think this is my fault because I really do think that I contaminated the sample. And um, they recommended soaking anything, any kind of tools that you use in a 10% bleach solution and then rinsing them and air drying them, or just using different like disposable clippers every time. Or also, because I use like human nail clippers. Personally, I find those easier, but they were like if you use like cat nail clippers, they're much easier to sterilize because you're not getting like inside that weird little nook. And also when I did Jelly Beans DNA test, calducts like don't bleed a lot. In case you're wondering, DNA tests, it's a blood sample. You need like one to two drops of blood. So it was like the tiniest. I mean, he was what? Probably like two days old when I did this test. So there was just like the tiniest little drop of blood. So I'm like, I probably contaminated the sample. If it was like a bigger blood sample, probably would have been fine.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

But I love that it's I love that it's beep beep's DNA. That it probably was. That's so funny. That makes sense though. Come on, beep beep. That I'm so excited that Jelly Bean's female because one of the things that was like gutting me about jelly bean, even in general, even though you were gonna be keeping him if he was a male, is like we all get attached to our boys, but I don't know if you feel this way. I will never be attached to my boys the way that I am attached to my girls because like my girls don't give me massive problems every spring um and try to kill each other. Like, you know, like they so like you just get closer to them because you also like and I'm gonna keep this mentality moving forward from here on out after going through this with my call drakes, especially. My my standard drakes don't give me nearly a time like my call drakes do or my bantam drakes, is there's gonna be a separation between me and my drakes forever because I don't want to go through the heartbreak that I went through this year, re-homing two drakes that I was like ridiculously attached to. Like, I'm always going to live with the mentality that I hate to say it, like boys can move at any point. Because I risked my hands to keep a boy that was dangerous. And I held on for too long. I started, my emotions started negatively impacting him, even because, like, the more restrictive I got towards him, the more negative it was for his quality of life. And so I, for not just for me, but for my birds, am gonna keep a line of divide. I say that as Napoleon is my baby child.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

I think that I'm in so much of a better position than you when it comes to Drakes because my Drake's ages are so staggered. Like Maple is old. I don't even know how old he is. He's like at least nine, probably older. Because I got him when he was an adult, and I was like pretty sure he was old when I got him. And now I've had him for like nine years. So that man is- How old is that duck? He's like a hundred years old. I don't know. Um, Maple predates all of us. Yeah. We have Mr. Whip who's seven, and he's never been. I mean, he's kind of a wimp, okay? He's he's never he doesn't have the capability to hurt a lady duck if he tried, okay? He's too round and too small. He can't hold him down. And so they're like the best drakes, you know? Marshmallow, he's my young guy, but I only have one young guy, so like it's fine. So you, all of yours were young at the same time. So, like, that that's rough. I don't I don't want to get another Drake until marshmallow is old. And I know I could never I could never get rid of Maple or Mr. Whip, but at this point, I know their personality, I know how they act during breeding season, and it's not like they get worse when they get older. They tend to get better when they get older, so I'm not worried about them, you know?

SPEAKER_00 43:42

I think that having a bunch of boys from the exact same year, because literally all of my drakes were from the same year, same exact age. I think they're all there's such a dynamic between all of them, like that they're constantly competing and they're on the same hormonal level, and that drives each other's hormones worse. Like, I'm now gonna stagger. Napoleon's younger than Goku. I know that for sure. Um, so I'm hoping Napoleon does well. But I also do have a feeling that because of the way Napoleon was raised, I'm not worried about separating him and Clementine together if he's a problem during breeding season. Or if one of my other drakes is a problem, like I they seem completely content to be in smaller spaces. So like they're probably honestly, realistically, like sugar is a good example. Like sugar is very tolerant of like smaller spaces. I think Clementine and Napoleon are gonna be very similar. Oh, Napoleon is such a tiny drink. Like he is smaller than Clementine that I genuinely think my hands are gonna beat the crap out of him. Like, I don't think that he's gonna, I don't think I think dumpling, because I think I have this feeling. You know how okay, you know this. You know, you know your duck's types, right? Like, oh yeah. When you see a duck and you're like, my duck would think that duck's actually have that. And I know Dumpling is about to think Napoleon is the sexiest thing she's ever seen. Like, I'm so excited for dumps because Dumpling gave up. You know the biggest tell that Gimli was being a problem was that Dumpling was sick of Gimli. Dumpling and Gimli have been paired for several years. Ducks don't pair the same every single year. Dumpling was so sick of Gimli this year. Like she was over it. And that's very like telling to me that like there's some problem with the dynamic when, like, especially a bonded pair hen is like, yeah, I'm done. And so I usually would be really stressed out rehoming a Drake that was bonded to a hen. And usually, if they were really bonded, I would try to bond or send them together um and keep that bond together. But this year I did not send dumpling and she did not care when Gimli was gone. There was not a single reaction out dumpling, not a single moment of looking for him. She was like, whatever. So, like every duck dating show, um, you know, it was the dating show breakup. It was very like, it was very on par. Wait, are you able to give the update about Pete Mallard?

unknown 45:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

So I I was gonna I was just gonna say, so speaking of ducks and their types, I have one final update to give you guys. So the stars just aligned for this one. It it's weird timing. This was the best. I love this one. So someone reached out to me on Instagram and they were like, a friend of mine had two ducks, one passed away, the one is alone, it's sad, it's depressed. I'm look, she's looking to rehome it. Would you be interested? And I get lots of these messages. And most of the time, these people live hundreds or thousands of miles away, or they have large breed ducks, which I can't add in large breed ducks to my flock, or they have drakes, which I, of course, can't be adding more drakes. So the only time that I would really be able to take in rehomes in a situation like this if they is if they are female and they are bantam-sized ducks. This duck just so happened to be a mallard, and I was almost kind of in denial of this at first. Like I was like, are you sure it's a mallard? Are you sure it's not a Rowan? Like, how much does it weigh? And it is in fact a mallard, and funny enough, I had been filming, I'm like partnering with um a local visitors bureau this year. I guess it's not really local, it's like hours away from me. But I had like filmed, I was like filming there, and one of the local businesses posted me and the ducks there. So these people thought that I was local because I was there. And I was like, you know what? I can just I can meet you in the middle. Like, I'm so sad for your duck that it's like depressed because it doesn't have other duck friends, and I want her to have a good life. So, like, yes, she can come live with me. And also, the like halfway point between me and her was literally like exactly where I needed to go anyway to order my wedding cake. So I was like, eh, I gotta go there anyway. Like, there you go. It all worked out oddly perfectly. Like, and and mallards, so if you don't know, mallards are a little bit more complicated to keep than other breeds. I wouldn't I wouldn't say more complicated, there's just more rules surrounding them. So, like, for domestic mallards, the US Fish and Wildlife has certain rules that have to be adhered to when you get them. So, like, they can either have a metal band around their leg, they can have their back toe clipped, she has her back toe clipped. And she also like came with official paperwork, like this is a domestic mallard, which is kind of crazy. And so I, as I was saying, speaking of ducks having types, I kind of had a feeling that Maple might like her because he really likes Donut, which is kind of freaky because donuts her daughter. His daughter. Um, Maple's really into white ducks and gray ducks. And I introduced her name is Pickle. I adore her. She's a sweetheart. I introduced Pickle to the flock, and first of all, I'm always nervous when introducing just one because I prefer, definitely prefer to introduce them in groups, so they have like a buddy. But Pickle's my largest duck now. She's like probably a pound bigger than the rest of them. So she didn't have any trouble. Like, she didn't get into fights with anybody. They were like, oh, she's big. I'm not gonna fight her.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

It's also completely different when you're introducing like a fully adult, like, say like a fully adult female is a very easy integration. Like, I've never really had issues introducing those. They don't really pecking order squab, like maybe the smallest amount, but it's nothing like the chaos that can ensue, especially if you're integrating a Drake. Oh my god, I'm not looking forward to the day Napoleon integrates.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Yeah. And so by like day two, Pickle and Maple were just like constantly next to each other. She is in love with him. He's in love with her. He's just happy that a woman likes him because he hasn't had a woman take interest in him since Munchkin died. And I'm happy for both of them. It's like almost, I feel like they're bonding over the fact that they both lost their spouse, which is sad. But that's so beautiful. I'm happy for them.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

I was so happy when you texted me that she loves Maple. I was like, oh my god, that's amazing. Maple needs this in his life.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

He does because like she's constantly pancaking for him and asking him to breed her. And nobody ever asks Maple to breed them, they just like run away from him. It's good for his arthritis. He needed somebody to submit, finally. Yeah. Maple had like she was just like used to only having one mate, so like that was a regular part of her routine. And now she's like, all right, where can I get some? And and Maple's like available. And like she all she follows him around. He just sits by her. It's so cute. And I'm I'm so happy that it all like just worked out so well because there's there's there's just been so many people over the years that have reached out to me and asked me if I could take in their ducks, and I haven't been able to. So I'm like, I'm glad I could help. I'm glad that I could especially help pickle. I mean, her owner was devastated to have to get rid of her. Like that family loved this duck. They didn't know. But I knew that the right thing to do was to let her have a flock. And now she has a flock, and I'm so happy for her. I'm so happy for her too.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

I loved that you got her. You when you called me, you were so nervous that I was gonna be like, heck no, because if you guys don't know, I've kept domestic mallards, and I don't like them for the kind of flock style that I have that I kept my domestic mallards in. I find them to be very feral, and the problem with that when you're kept in a setting like mine is they go off and they're gone, and you can't find them, and they just don't really return return home well. I still have one. He's good, but that's because he has some Wall Street girlfriends and he sticks around for that. But I don't think, I think if those Walshie girlfriends were gone, he'd be gone. Um yeah. They're and I told Chrissy when she she was so nervous that I was gonna be like, oh like, heck no, this is a terrible idea. I was like, no, I actually think it it'll work okay in your setup. Like mine, since they never existed within a pen style setup, could never be in my pen style setups. They can't be in my Bantuff box. Yeah. But I think if they do well in that environment or get on well with the ducks, um, it can work, if that makes sense. But I think a lot of people look to keep I think there's a couple settings. I kind of view them as like a wild type, in my opinion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

So could I something that I noticed, which is really interesting to me, is that she is so aware of her surroundings. Whereas my call ducks are not. Like I could you've you've talked about this before. If I opened the door to the pen, I could step on a call duck and they wouldn't move. Pickle, this mallard, is so aware of her surroundings. She notices hawks before any other duck in my flock. Like, she's got her eye on the sky. And when we went, so I like brought a crate for her, and her past owner had her in a crate in the back of her car. And she was like, Okay, so like how do you want to get her out and like transfer her? And I was like, I'm afraid that this duck is gonna be a flight risk. So I'm just gonna climb into your trunk. You're gonna close it, and I'm gonna do the transfer in the car so she can't escape. And thank goodness I did, because when I reached my hand in to get her, she like flies over. It was like a pretty big dog kennel, so she had space. She like flies over my hand and into the window of the car, and I had to like get her down and like hold her wings down to actually get her into my carrier. They're also good in the car.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

They're also very skilled flyers. Come you'll notice compared to your call ducks. Very their flying capabilities are extremely intact. They're very aerodynamic. My my mallard goes. I'll look in the sky every once in a while, and I'll see a duck, like all the way in oblivion, and I'll be like, is that ours? And every once in a while it is.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

So she does have one of her wings clipped, so she doesn't fly right now. I don't think she's ever she's probably had her wings clipped her whole life. Actually, you want to know where this duck came from? Let me let me tell that story before we go. So she actually came from a game bird hunting farm. So essentially they raised, they raise captive-bred domestic mallards and then release them on a pond so people can shoot them, which personally I think is stupid. And I'm not against hunting. I just think it's silly to raise birds in captivity and then shoot them. Like, wait, do they go hunt wild mallards?

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Do they release them only on hunting, like game day, like when they go out to shoot them? Or do they stock their pond and then shoot what they raise and grow? Because it would be really stupid, in my opinion. Like, I'm pro-hunting, I'm very pro-hunting, but it would be really like you could have a self-sufficient population if you just raised stocked your ponds and then let them reproduce every year.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

I'm not entirely sure. When it comes to the mallards, I find them being captive bred and released to be very upsetting because of how detrimental it's been to the wild population. Everybody likes to blame it on people's pet domestic ducks, but captive bred mallards released from game bird farms actually are becoming a bigger problem to the wild population's genetics. Why? So I think, I don't know if it was duck DNA. I feel like I sent this to you like a long time ago, but there was like some research done on where the the domestic genetics were coming from in the wild populations, and they were actually to trace it, able to trace it back to see that a lot of the domestic genetics are coming from captive game bird farm mallards and not other breeds of domestic ducks, which is interesting and makes a lot of sense because captive bred domestic mallards can fly, they could potentially migrate, they're a lot more likely to intermingle with the wild mallards and do wild mallard things, whereas domestic birds like ours are more likely to die in the wild. That makes sense, less likely to thrive and reproduce.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

And also, you yeah, I guess they would be reproducing at like a stronger scale because like the females. So one thing that is true is like you think about like each female has its ideal type of male. And so the you know, we get these this is a whole conversation. I don't even know why to go down this rabbit hole. I'm gonna try to make it quick. You get these birds that look really pretty, right? So like the mallard with the green head, and they're very flamboyant. So when you get like a domestic mallard that's in tune with the interests of the wild female mallards, because like a pecan might not be, you know, like because it's a they they wanted that green head. That's what those female birds, you know, think is the hottest things in sliced bread. That's why the males have the green head and the all the fancy stuff they have. And so when you get something that's basically their type, this this episode has turned into ethical breeding and what our ducks think is sexy. But this was not our intention. This was not our intention. When you get the green head, like it would make sense that they're breeding those more because it may it aligns with what they're attracted to, basically. So that does make sense. But I'm just shocked that the genetics would be so detrimental considering the wild or the domestic mallard's genetics are so similar to a wild mallard's genetics. Does that make sense? And like over foraging, over-grazing land, as well as reducing flight capabilities and impacting migratory instinct uh and stuff like that. Whereas you would think that the domestic genetics of the domestic mallard wouldn't be as impactful on that because they do have those capabilities.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

Yeah, I think I think it's a mix of both. I think that a domestic duck like a pecan is gonna have a way, it's gonna have a way more immediate impact on the ecosystem. That makes sense. Whereas the wild and domestic mallard together, it's more of a long-term overgenerations diluting the population, bringing in these domestic characteristics. And also a lot of these, depending on where they come from, a lot of domestic mallards are much larger than wild mallards.

SPEAKER_00 57:35

Mine is so small. Mine is so fat. That is the fattest mallard I've ever seen in my life. He I actually was laughing so hard one time because he's so fat, and every year I'm like, I don't, I kind of am at the point where I'm like, should I intervene? Because Watkin is so fat. And there was a time where two wild mallards showed up on our land, and Watkin saw the female mallard, and he was like, Oh, I'm gonna go get her. And his little bowling ball self was like go like running through my yard, and the the mallard Drake from the wild was so sleek and like Watkin was this like boulder, and I'm like, dude, he's gotta stop eating. Like that boy is chunky.

SPEAKER_01 58:15

Yeah, so you can see how like the sizes are different, the instincts are changed, because through domestication, we essentially are making them friendlier and don't quote me on that. I'm obviously not a wild duck expert by any means. This is just things that I've picked up and learned about them. But yeah, I also I just don't understand the purpose of raising a bird in captivity and then hunting it. And I think a lot of my opinion on that comes from owning Beep Beep, which he's a chucker partridge. He was raised in captivity. They're not native here, but somebody raised him, released him, shot him, took a bad shot, and then dude had to suffer for probably months on end until I caught him and had his leg amputated. But like he doesn't belong here. He's not he's not native, he's not domesticated. I literally only own him because he's a rescue. Like, I don't I don't recommend them as pets. I just I if you're gonna hunt, just hunt things in the wild.

SPEAKER_00 59:10

Also, in my opinion, it kind of reduces the entire thing I enjoy about hunting, which is it being a more natural way to source your food. So that's it kind of eliminates that. In which you like like if you're gonna do that, just raise meat and kill it and butcher it at home and farm it.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

Like I don't really know how these game bird farms work, but like if maybe they're like raised on a big pond with like a top cover on it, I don't know. And they're like actually eating what's natural, but like if they're just feeding them like corn and pellets, like why not just raise a duck and eat it? Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 59:43

I mean somebody somebody could definitely change my mind on my opinions on it if they actually like fully educated me. Cause I like I think I'm talking out of a place of like I'm hearing about this really for the first time today. I don't I don't hear that much about it. So if somebody doesn't we're not really we're not really involved in in that side of the community.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:01

But here we are like kissing our ducks on the head. At the end of the day, I'm happy because this duck was destined to be shot, and now she's living her best life, and she has her sugar daddy mate that's like 10 years older than her, probably.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

Now she's living her best life. I mean, I like in I think a lot of people are probably shocked by us not being anti-hunting, but the reality is this hunting, if you understand what the hunting community does for waterfowl and wild waterfowl in general, it's pretty hard to be against hunters. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

It's not even like pro pro hunting, it's it's pro-duck conservation. And guess who does that? Waterfowl hunters, ducks unlimited.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:41

More than any other Yeah, that's why I always like they do so much, and the most important thing we can ever do for wild waterfowl is preserve their habitat, and the only people that are really doing it is duck hunters. I hate to say it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

That's the thing. Like, people will be like, people could could try and argue, but no one else is doing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:01

So taxidermy ducks in my house from hunters. Like, I I I were very specific about ethically sourcing them. Yes. Yeah. I get them from like real hunters that actually like usually I go to estate sales, like hunters estate sales, like when they're finally like selling off a bunch of stuff, and I get them and I actually talk to the hunter, and we actually some of my best w waterfowl conversations. We're coming from two completely different worlds. They're hunters, and I'm a birder. And I we talk about waterfowl, and we really like it's crazy how much they know. Like, it shows you how much they truly respect the animal and understand the animal and care about like the wetlands and all that stuff. Because it's the best waterfowl conversations I ever get to have, is actually hunters, and they're usually so excited to talk about ducks and everything and talk ducks that they like. And I love hunters. Like, I I actually grew up around hunters, a bunch of my family is, and they're they a lot of them. There's really bad ones and there's really good ones, and the really good ones really have a deep respect for the wilderness and nature and habitats and the animals.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

We definitely see both sides of it because we understand that these are the people who are actually conserving wetlands for ducks, but then we also have like Instagram comments from duck hunters who are just not good people and leave us these horrible comments about I'm gonna shoot your duck. And I'm like, first of all, no, you're not. Second of all, wow, that was such an original comment. Never heard that one before.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

Somebody, somebody commented one time and said, uh, can I like come like shoot up your backyard? And I was like, wow, you're so bad at hunting. You need to come shoot a bunch of domestics that don't move. Like, go outside. And I hate when people try to use it as like a way to like get at me because like I'm like, this is I don't care. I don't care if you hunt dogs. Like people say that all the time, like, oh, you wouldn't like me to hunt dogs. I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Um I I you they annoy me when they don't respect the animal and leave stupid comments. Yeah. Because I'm like, I feel like when the media, I'm like, you don't care about conservation, do you?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

Yeah, like you don't actually hunt for the reasons that hunting is good. Um, usually people like that hunt because they think it's cool to kill something, which is very strange to me. Um, but like it's also in the same sense that I don't humans are a predator, and I don't get mad when predators are predators. I somebody told me I had a predator, like I had a hawk attack on waffles, and somebody told me that because I never get mad at predators for being predators and doing things. Like I've never felt that. I've never upset the animal. I get upset with myself if I fail, but and it was the same thing. Like I was- I was like, well, one day one day when one of your birds get hurt, you're gonna be so mad at the predator. But like I'm not eat critters all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

Yeah. So animals eat other animals.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

I don't get mad at humans for being predators. Does that make sense? Like, you know, like I don't get mad at humans for eating meat. I get mad at people for people like I get mad at people for unethically sourcing their meat. I get mad at people who torture birds. Uh my you know what my least favorite thing is? Is people who take crappy care of meat birds because they're meat birds.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:58

Yeah. I they still deserve to live a happy life. Yeah. And still deserve to be treated with respect.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

You only have them things for so long. Give them like give them a good time for that life. God, if you told me I only had to keep a duck happy and healthy for six weeks, it'd live in a it'd have paradise. I'd be like, what do you want to do today, brother? We're going to McDonald's. You know? Like, it's it's you don't have a lot of time with them. Like, take good care of them while they're here and be respectful of the fact they're giving their life to you, you know? Like, yeah, even nature does that in its own little ways, you know? Like, you think about the we talked about this before, but like hawks being very swift in their ability to like take out a life, and nature has its own ways of like doing that, and humans can do it too, but humans just like they sometimes they just choose to be dirtbags, and it's like okay, I know we're we're we're we're going so long, we're we're we didn't do our topic at all today, but I have one more thing to add. Okay, before wait, before you add this, so just so everybody knows, we are turning this episode into just straight up homestead updates because me and Chrissy actually sat down. We have plans, and we didn't do any of them. Um, but that's okay because the last couple episodes we've been back, we've been backed up because we haven't been able to do an episode. So this one is just a catching up episode, and I swear we will get back to our normal routine next episode. So I hope you guys are enjoying this just straight up conversation between me and Chrissy right now. I mean, we told the people that's what they were gonna get from the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:31

I know. Like we're taking you into our conversations.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

Yeah, this is an equivalent. Me and Chrissy basically jumped on the phone. I don't even remember starting this episode, but yeah, we basically did just jump on the phone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

So I recently posted a video and I talked about how I got Shibunkin goldfish to put in my pond. The fish community has lost their minds a little bit in my comments. And there are things that I'm hearing that I'm just like, whoa. So I captioned it and I was like, I just need to. Frogs to the pond and then I'll have all the critters that I want in my pond. And people were like, you can't have frogs and fish in the same pond. And I'm like, I don't know, I grew up with fog frogs and fish in the same pond. Like my parents had a little koi pond when I was growing up. And you know, there are frogs and fish and toads and water bugs and whatever in there. Then I have people that are like, I said in this video, I'm like, one of the things that's like really important is you have to get fish that are big enough that your ducks can't eat them. And I have so many comments that are like, your ducks are gonna eat those fish. And I'm like, they physically can't. They can't. So I have fed my ducks live minnows before. And one time in particular, Hash Brown Montana was sick and dying, and she wasn't eating. And as a last ditch effort, it was in like February. So I had to go to the bait store and get like the ice fishing fish, because that's all they had, because I was just trying to get this duck to eat anything, and live food can entice them to eat. And I got like a dozen of these little fish, and one of them was bigger than the rest, and the ducks couldn't eat it, and it was just in a bowl. They have a hard enough time trying to catch them in a bowl. They're not gonna catch them in the pond.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

The only time your ducks are gonna eat that fish is when they die and then they're running around with the corpse. They're not built to.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:11

They will not be able to, they're not gonna be able to catch them. And then I just, oh wow, the pond, these fish people have really like they're kind of scaring me because they're like, those fish aren't gonna last a second, like the raccoons are gonna come and eat them. And I'm like, I don't know. Like I had I had a fish pond growing up, and like there was a very small amount of instances where I think because our neighbor like fed the feral cats where a cat would get a fish, but like we really that like that wasn't a huge issue. And the fish also like breed and make more fish.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

So if you have great blue herons, though, your biggest issue is gonna be a GBH. I've never seen them in a small pond of Alcob. But I mean, realistically, what are you supposed to do about that? Like, in my opinion, it would just be feeding nature, right? Like a GBH might like that, actually, they might.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

They're funny. I don't know. I don't know if they would come in into like the area I have it, because it's so like blocked off. Like we got my house on one side, the duck pond on the other, and they have they're like they have such big wingspans. I don't even know how it could like easily navigate into that area.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:13

They're funny. See, to me, that'd be a win if a GBH was eaten from my pond. I'd be like, you get them fish.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:18

Like I know my parents now have a pond that's like actually massive, like they just like had an excavator come dig a massive hole in their backyard. And I mean it's like at least 10 times the size of my pond. And like they have a great heron issue. But I don't know. Hopefully I won't, but like worst case that I could always put a net over the pond. Are they like obscene?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

Like, is it is it okay if your fish get eaten?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:42

Well, like, are you supposed to I see it? Like our goldfish are super technical. I I don't know, because our goldfish are just bred, and then we had more goldfish. That's what I so I like my goldfish. I'm gonna treat them like pets because I think they're cute.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

But I have them in my pond, and if they die, they die. Maybe I'm a monster. I'm excited when I see them.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

I'm like, I'm just not super concerned about them. But yeah, I always do according to the fish people, I'm doing everything wrong. And also my ducks are gonna kill them because they're gonna poop in the pond. But do the fish people guys only gonna be in there for like an hour a day.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:20

Do the fish people, first of all, my goldfish and frogs and ducks and all of that lives together and it's a self-sustaining system in there. I haven't stocked that pond in God knows how long, and they just reproduce and I have them every year. So I don't know what's going on. I don't worry about it. But I guess maybe if like you're really concerned about I I just care that enough fish survive that I still have fish. Like, I guess I don't like I don't know them. I've never met them, we've never hung out. They are in there and I see them every once in a while. But like, I I guess if you really care about like, and I'm sure there's people that really do want their fish to survive. Like, I view them as a part of nature.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:57

Bought this special breed, the shebunkin goldfish, because I think they're really cool and they're really pretty. But man, I really, I really made the fish community mad at me.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:05

I didn't know they got upset about that. I genuinely didn't know that they were like, you gotta hardware cloth, you're five. It's screws and washers. You gotta go and you gotta do the whole thing, Chrissy.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

Uh you gotta be because how many out of all the pawns in the world, like driving around the neighborhood, you see ponds. Most of them have fish. Any of them could have a raccoon eat a fish.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

That's what I'm saying. Like, is that actually something that people fight against? Like, I thought it was just kind of like a part of the game. They do it. Do it on the internet.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:33

Maybe, maybe, I don't know. They people I know that have ponds are great and they love to talk to me about their ponds and their fish. But the people on the internet, I'm like, well.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

I'm gonna go through. And if their pond isn't covered in minimum 19 gauge hardware cloth, screws and washers, nothing less than a two-inch gap, I'm gonna let them know that a raccoon can get their fish. I'll get back at them for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:52

You know, that's kind of funny because all these people, when they do net their ponds, it's just like bird netting, which is so nothing. It's doing nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:59

It's doing it's it's the only thing it's stopping is maybe the GBH, but honestly, a GBH will just eat the whole net if you've ever watched those things engage with the world. They're insane.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

They don't pond update. I am gonna be getting more plants in the pond to help protect the fish and give them more caves. They have some caves, but the internet didn't see them, so they were like, you need to get them caves. And I'm like, I have caves, but I'll get more caves and more pond cover. Because those are some fish. Well, the fish like shade when it gets really hot, so that's why they have caves. And then if they want if there were like was a predator, they could hide from it in a cave. Um, and I know that my fish have caves because sometimes I go over there and I don't see any fish, so they're out, they're hiding in little natural caves. Yeah, they have natural like you have rocks and stuff. Yeah. But that should be all of our homestead updates. And I'm so sorry we don't answer anyone's questions today.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:50

No, we didn't. I'm gonna have to do a fish ethics deep dive now. Because apparently I'm a terrible fish owner. I feel like I if they hate you, they should hate me. I should be by like I should be attacked by the fish police. Come get me. I didn't know. I thought, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:04

I expect this from the beta fish people. Yeah, and I respect them. I respect them hardcore because the beta fish people want you to ethically care for your beta fish. And I agree, guys, your your beta fish deserve to live a good life and not in a bowl.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

But I didn't expect here's my argument. I have free-range fish, okay? Natural life. That is fine. I'm not messing with my fish. My fish are instinctual, they're foraging. I don't know what they're doing. Yeah, they don't need, they don't, they're fine.

unknown 1:12:32

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:34

And unless you have hardware cloth on your pond, I don't want to hear it.

unknown 1:12:38

That's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:39

That's my whole thing. I'm just kidding. But yeah, I have free-range fish. If anybody needs to understand how I chose to keep my fish, that's how I chose to keep my fish. And Chrissy, I support you if you do the same. Thank you. Sounds like all the things. Yeah, we we highly failed this episode. I'm I'm sorry, but I feel like it was still a good episode. We talked about a lot of topics. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:56

Just we've all convoluted. We're we're gonna make you a promise. Next episode, I don't even want to do homestead updates. We're just gonna answer your questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:05

We don't have the maturity to handle homestead updates without going on a tangent, so we can't do that for well, we're just gonna answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:13

This is what we've we said, like in episode one, though. Like, we get on the phone and we just like go off. Yes, yeah. You guys so now you guys really get to know what happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:22

Yeah, you guys didn't think you were gonna talk about predator proofing your fish, but now you know that if you have a goldfish bowl in your house, 19 gauge corner-inch hardware cloth on the top, or you I'm sorry, I would not be able to be in your comment section. I'd be like, oh, you want to talk about predator? Because predator-proofing a bird is like a whole thing. They're like, I need to net. Net my butt. I like to see a raccoon take your fish right out of that net. All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:50

So before we go, as just just a reminder, we do have merch. This is my newest um merch. It says, Oh, your ducks and I really like it. I think it's that from your merch line.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:02

I was gonna say I've never seen that before. Diddy got this for me off Amazon. If you want it, it's on Amazon. I think. I might not be there anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:09

And we also have the Duck Ladies Podcast merch. All of it will be linked below. Thank you guys so much for watching today's episode. I promise we'll be answering your questions in the next one.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:18

Yeah, I promise. Well, we're done. We needed to catch up. We all needed to catch up. This is all of our catch up. We're all just having a day, okay? All right, that is all we got for this one. Don't forget to predator proof your fish tonight. Bye, guys.