Do Ducks Need Water At Night & Mallard Ducks

Welcome to Episode 15 of the Duck Ladies Pondcast with Host Krissy from @DunkinDucks   and Emily from ​@CheeseandQuackersHomestead  ! In episode 15 we discuss if ducks need water at night and feature mallard ducks  as our breed of the week. 

0:00:00 Introduction
0:00:10 Homestead Updates | Apple Fritters Sinus Infection | Lemon Molting | Duckling Growouts Integration | Duckling Name?
0:14:20 Do ducks need water at night? 
0:47:46 Breed of the week: Mallards
0:59:47 Metzer Farms
1:02:15 Closing & Merch Shoutout

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Duck Ladies Podcast, episode 15. I'm your host, Chrissy from Dunkin' Ducks, here with Emily from Cheese and Quackers Homestead. And today we're gonna be featuring the Mallard Duck as our breed of the week, sharing some homestead updates if we even have any, because I know I don't have any. Do you have any? Apple Fritter had a sinus infection that was really bad. That's a great update.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

And she's doing really well now. So we did we did get it under control. Oh, what else happened?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Yeah, but that's really it. Tell me. I mean, I already know this because we like FaceTimed what was happening. But tell me, how did you notice that Apple Fritter had a sinus infection?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

She started with foamy eye. So this is what's interesting, actually, this is kind of an interesting topic in general. Was the sinuses in the eyes of a duck are like impossible to distinguish where the origin of the infection is coming from. Because sometimes you can have an eye infection that after affects the sinus, and then you get swelling, or you could have a sinus infection that after affects the eye. So you don't really know. So what I ended up doing is just treating both. I I'm assuming it was sinus, because with how quickly I had seen her eye symptoms, it would be shocking to me that she would have that much sinus inflammation. And for anybody wondering, a duck's sinus literally runs like almost all the way around their eye. So she had inflammation like all the way through here. Sometimes one thing you'll see with a sinus infection is like a really puffy cheek, like right in this area on the duck. And so I just treated for both. And she had that foamia. She actually didn't have any discharge from her nails or like sneezing, coughing, respiratory symptoms, or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I think that's probably because you caught it so early.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yes. I know I did catch it early. She's an older duck, so I wasn't sure how she was going to turn around because her inflammation around here was really bad. Like she she did have a solid amount of swelling. But yeah, she healed really well, which was great news. I was very relieved because I was probably not gonna take that one to the vet. I was gonna see if I could manage it at home. I was able to get it under control pretty quickly, and she's back out with the rest of the flock as of yesterday. We put her back out there and she's doing really good.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

She looks all much all the way better. So glad that Apple Fritter is doing better. And you just reminded me about how we have another example of how it's so good to have a duck friend or a poultry friend around because a couple weeks ago I had that quail with a sinus infection, and I should have immediately been like puffy cheek sinus infection, but instead I was like, She's got tumor, she's gonna die. And so obviously I call Emily and I'm like, I think my quail has a tumor, and she's like, Send me a picture, let me see it. It was just a sinus infection. I I treated it at home, cleared right up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

It is weird though, because it it I understand why Chrissy thought tumor, because sometimes with these infections, the inflammation is like in an area where it's like very hard. It's not like a soft, and it feels very firm. Like the inflammation around apple fritters the same thing. Hers what your your quail looked a lot more like it could potentially be a tumor. Then I was also like, Chrissy, how would a tumor grow that fast? I know. Chrissy was like three days ago, she got cancer. She Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

It's it's super aggressive, I guess. And I was like, oh, I think I think you could treat that. But we happen to be on the topic of sinus infections. I feel like this is a good time to mention that call ducks in particular are more prone to sinus infections, especially if they are bred to have really small extreme features. So I am actually shocked that sugar, knock on wood, has never had a sinus infection because of she has like every other common ailment of a extremely poorly bred call duck, but she doesn't get sinus infections. And so sometimes if you see a call duck and it's cheek, especially if it's just one cheek, but it could be both cheek cheeks that are like super, super puffed up, that's could be a sinus infection.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

I ha duck in my big duck flock that's prone to sinus infections, and she gets them like very frequently. She has like seasonal allergies or something. She typically gets them like once a year. We're on a streak though, because she hasn't gotten one in several, like I think almost two years now. So maybe she's over whatever it was. But her her cheek, like it's it's hers is exclusively right here. Ironically, this is actually coconut, which is apple fritters' bestie that gets all the sinus infections. So funny, this time it was Apple Fritter. So that's why I was like looking at Apple, yeah, and I was like, are you coconut? Am I like, have I mixed you guys up somewhere along the way? Because I'm like, it feels weird that this is Apple, not coconut, because coconut gets them all the time. But yeah, calducts can definitely get them. I've actually never had a happen with my Calducks either, which is cool because sinus infections are a difficult treat at home because we don't really have topicals that we can use for that. You definitely typically do have to get a more advanced antibiotic. But yeah, that's it for my homestead updates.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Do you have any others that you can think of? I really don't. My ducks are just molting, but we talked about that last week. So I don't really have any more updates than that. Actually, one thing that I will mention is that lemon, one of my Australian spotted ducks, she looks horrible. Oh yeah. She's the one I sent you pictures of. She's molting in the strangest way. I feel like she's molting like a chicken and not a duck, because she just like lost all her head feathers. And then her head feathers started growing back and she lost all her neck feathers.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

I laughed so hard when you sent me that photo because she looked, she was also like sitting there all cutely. And I was like, that duck looks 150 years old. She does.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

That was so bad. This is her first ever molt, so I feel really bad for her because she's like I actually I feel bad for all for several of my ducks right now. So blackberry, coconut, and lemon. Blackberry and coconut have always been dramatic about molts. Like they now are the last two ducks to waddle out of the coop in the morning because they're just like, I I want to say lethargic, but they act like they kind of act like they're dying. And I know they're not because these two particular ducks do the same thing every year. They like act like it hurts them to like exist be alive and walk. And I just feel so bad. But I let Doc Dad give them extra high protein treats this time of year.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

It's needed. This is the worst every year this time of year, and because of Dippin' Dot, especially, I am so anxious because Dippin' Dot her, like, and Chrissy remembers this because Chrissy, like, I had been texting her, texting her about my concerns of Dippin' Dot through the very beginning, when Dippin' Dot very first started seeming sick. And the first thing, because molting makes them act so sick. So the first thing that I thought was wrong with Dippin' Dot was that it was, she was just molting, and she just felt like crap. And so now I'm going into my first like big molt since then, and all of my ducks are acting the way Dipp and Dot did when she very first got sick, and it's like messing with my head. Like I had to keep reminding myself. Like, I think I texted Chrissy about it the other day with ravioli. I was like, another thing that happened with Dippin' Dot's illness is she didn't end up ever molting. She was acting like she was molting and she was looking somewhat scruffy like she was potentially molting, but she never actually turned over her wings or did like any of the normal things. So, like I've been staring at my ducks to make sure that every single one of them molts. And ravioli hasn't molted yet, but she's probably turning over feathers, even if I haven't started to notice it, because you don't really notice that much until they drop their wings and the whole drama starts. But they've been molting for long before that actually happens. So ravioli might actually be molting, but I'm like, Chrissy, she's dying. She's not gonna molt. Her kidneys are failing.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

I can feel it in my bones, and I'm like, And I'm like, she's like, she's probably fine. I'm like, she probably just hasn't dropped those wing feathers yet. Like, quite a few of my ducks still haven't molted yet. I'd say about more than half of mine have molted their wing feathers, but I still got quite a few that haven't yet, which is nice because it's good to have some ducks that are still like happy and perky and friendly while the rest are everybody's so grumpy.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Everybody's so grumpy in there. We went to the main pan the other day. Espresso dropped all of her wings. I've never actually seen this. All of her wing feathers at once? Because they always do their wing feathers like all in like a day. But all of her tail feathers at once, too. Which usually that doesn't happen. She knows she doesn't have wings and a tail, and she's just like an orb and it looks so funny.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

That's Blackberry right now. She dropped all of her tail feathers.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

I'm excited for everybody to be done molting. I absolutely like I like molting season because everybody gets fresh new feathers and any any feather damage, like Chovy. I've been so happy to see her molting because she's been the girl's been in need for Cannoli looks amazing. Did you see the photo of Cannoli? She looks like an angel. She looks so healthy now, which is amazing because she had so much feather damage from that pond incident and she just never really got better after it. It just never got better. So now she she looks she's fully feathered. She's like super in super good shape. I'm still waiting on Choby. She's got a bunch of pins. She looks a little crazy right now. She's definitely starting her molt. She hasn't dropped her wings, but everybody is gonna look beautiful in a couple months. It's prime time. Fall photography for ducks is like the best time because they all look stunning because they're getting and they all have their fresh new feathers.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

So excited every year when sugar molts, because sugar just looks a little ratty most of the time because she can't reach all of her feathers, supreen them. And so her feathers get like pretty tattered and gross. So I like when she grows in new feathers. It doesn't last long, but it's like sugar's in her prime when they grow back.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

All right, I actually have one more homestead update that I had forgotten about. Goosey goo has the babies full time. She's we're done. We're done co-parenting. I know I like it. I it happened quicker than I expected it to because I had pre-arranged the babies with Goosey Goo, like when they were smaller. And Goosey must have just not been in the mood to mother that day. Because I had the babies with me, and she was just doing a terrible job watching them. And I was like, I'm gonna just keep and grow about whatever, it's not a big deal. So we ended up then waiting another week and I put them out in the coup for the first time because I was like, they're finally big enough. Didi's so funny. He goes, I because when the babies were like larger, I'm like, they're definitely large enough that like a rat won't hurt them anymore. Like, we could put them out there. Didi was like, no. He's like, he's like, they're still too pure of heart. He's like, it's actually, it's not the size, it's the soul. And so he was like, he wouldn't let me put them out there. And so I waited, um, I think it was like just under three weeks when we ended up putting them out there. And I they were in the coop because I was treating it like she wasn't gonna take them on full time at first because we had that one weird day where she just like didn't do a good job. This morning I was looking for goosey because I figured she would come out with all the other geese because they're always out together. And she wasn't there, and then I went over and she was pressed up against the fence, the fence where the babies were like waiting for the babies to come out. And so I was like, oh, I think she wants them. And so then I put them out, and then ever since she's been raising them. So she's finishing raising them full time and they're safe. They're like, it's so awesome to have a goose that does that. And like it all geese really do that, but like compared to ducks, because the best part is I had those babies for the first couple weeks, like on and off. So they got attached to people, but they are also goose raised, so I don't have to integrate. Like they just get to be, they just get to be free, and I got to spend like all of the baby phase with them, so they still love us. They're like not human skittish, like you can sometimes get with bird raised birds. Prime. Like it's so awesome to just be like, I'm sick of it. Like, take you know, like, so god, there's no birds and brooders in my house.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

You had a very long brooder season this year. It was horrible. It was just it was ducklings in your house for months on end.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah. And goslings too. The day we finally moved all of the birds out of the house, carrot and apple fritter both had to be pulled inside. I was like, you guys suck. Like, honestly. But yeah, now everybody's officially moved out full time. Our ducks are integrated into my main pen flock. There's so many freaking ducks in there. Oh my god. I'm like, I need to get birds out of this. I haven't moved my Australian spotteds into the breeder pen. So there's like more birds than are is ever gonna be in that area. And I was like, oh, it's not restimulating. And I have your ducks, so it's like you're I want to tell you, like, I need to go out there and watch them, but it's been raining. Because I wonder who of my main pen flock your ducks are gonna like develop little friendships with so that you can know like interesting. I could promise you, Peanut is not one of the ones that any of them are friends with. She was beating, she was beating the crap out of them when I saw them this morning. So they're getting humbled by Peanut.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

So you've had you've had these ducks obviously for a while now. They're they're basically fully feathered now. I named two of them.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Blue cheese.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

I named blue cheese and I named the butterscotch butterscotch. I had to. Maybe this is weird, but I had a I had a hamster named Butterscotch when I was like nine. Yeah. And I just think it's a great name. You have to name the one. Because it's been bothering me because I like it. It doesn't have to be a chance. It doesn't have a name. I don't know what to name it though. I went with blue cheese. I don't know if we ever said that like officially, but the I think we did. White duck with the blue spots. It's blue cheese because I wanted it to have like a somewhat cheese and quackers homestead themed name. So cheese, obviously. It just makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

And if you didn't know what Chrissy named Chrissy named my silver pickerel. I took a name that she suggested, and so it's like we're doing like a little mashup for these names. You know what you should do for the name of that one? You should have people submit names and then pick your favorites and put them in a bowl and draw one. Because I did that with the Breakfast Club and it was really fun. That is super cute. So maybe you should wait until you have it and then you can like do it at your at your house.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah, that'll be fun. Also, I'm glad I didn't name it based on color, because we initially thought it was black bibbed, and it's definitely not. So like blue cheese was named based on color before she even grew in real feather. So if I had named it like black licorice and now it's brown.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Also, if blue cheese wasn't blue, I was gonna be so bad because that was the perfect name for that duck. I'm so glad she turned out to be blue. She's not your duck, though. She's my duck because she's not allowed to leave.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Guys, I'm I I will not be surprised if I meet up with Emily to give my duck, some blue cheese isn't there. I'm just gonna get surprised.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

A ratty little duck from my vlog. It's cannoli.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

I feel like cannoli would live well with sugar, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Actually, no, because the thing about cannoli is cannoli has sugar vibe, but she hates being separated. Like she is a menace about it. So there's that.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

More you know. I think that is actually all of our homestead updates now. So this is very exciting for me because I get to talk about my Roman Empire. You guys know how Emily, Emily has her Roman Empire of water safety with ducklings. My Roman Empire is the fact that ducks need water at night. So today we wanted to focus on what you need in your coop overnight and what an overnight coop should really be like. So I think Emily has pointed this out a lot that one of the most important things when it comes to overnight safety is that predators can't see your birds. So you I think we both absolutely recommend keeping them in a coop overnight. Hypothetically, I could keep my birds in their pen overnight. I do feel like they would be safe in there. I've taken every precaution I can to make that area safe. However, I know that we get more predators at night because a lot of them are nocturnal. And I don't love the idea of, say, a fox or something like pacing back and forth on the fence line trying to get in and freaking them out. I'd much rather them be in their coop where nothing can see them, they can't see anything, and everybody will be calmer.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

One of the reasons that I am so passionate about over or access to a coop that is enclosed is because I'm sure you noticed this too. And I actually just noticed this this week. We had a hawk or an owl or birds of prey coming down, smashing into the top of our pens. That happens sometimes. And all of my birds stayed in the coop, which shows me that they feel the safest in the coop. That's where they decide that they need to be in order to be away from all threats. So if you think about how, like Chrissy was saying, like, yeah, obviously the hawk couldn't reach them, but they still didn't like being they were unsettled by being in an area where the hawk could potentially see them. And they wanted to find a place where they didn't feel like that was the case. And so that's why I think having really secure, like, four walls on your coop is very important. And I thought that that was a great example. I know you've had that happen too. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

We also had I felt obviously you can't actually you can. Okay, so so the way that my coops are set up and have been set up, predators could see into their pens during the day. Technically, your call duck pen, the way it's set up, predators can't see into it, right? Because you have wood slats in the sides like halfway.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Yes, and no, uh some areas so interestingly, the white pen, a predator could see in. Okay. From many points. The the main pen has some areas that they can see out. Like the deck is made for them to be able to go and look out. Like I wanted them to have that so they can like look at stuff. They love that. But when main pen gets scared, they only evacuate to the portion of the run where the walls are so that they know that they can't be seen, right? Yeah. When the white flock gets scared, they go to their coop. So I think it depends, yeah, because like your run has wire all the way down to the ground. So like they're gonna resort to the coop because that's where they feel like they have those walls of safety. Whereas my my my standard flocks is the same thing. They all go up to the coop. My my main pen doesn't. They actually which isn't which actually isn't ideal in my opinion. I would rather them run to the coop. They just run to the section of the coop that is fully Yeah, but that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah. So this this topic kind of reminded me that one time we did have a fox that came out during the day back when my ducks were living at Duck Dad's parents' house. So they were just in a like dog kennel style pen with hardware cloth all around it, and a fox had come during the day, and there was no way that it was gonna be able to get in, but it was just pacing the fence line back and forth trying to get in, and then it would like jump up on it. And so all of my ducks had gone either into the pond or into the miniature coop that was in there that we didn't really use it as a coop, but there was just a tiny coop in there. And I I wasn't there, obviously, or I would have chased scared the fox away. But I have like footage of this, and the worst thing I felt so bad was that sugar was separated, and so all the other ducks are like going to their safe places, and sugar is just like by herself freaking out. And I felt sad. So bad. So the way my pen is set up now, sugar's like on an interior, sugar's shack is on an interior wall connected to the chicken pen, so that can never happen to her again. And so she could feel more safe.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, that's the worst. I felt bad because I know that hawk has been messing with the white's pen, which is fine. I actually was kind of laughing about it because I was like, I kind of feel like the call ducks are like live bait because it keeps them away from my standards who are actually at risk, and they just smash into the call duck pen all day. Because why would they go after my standards when there's better, smaller meals to them? They think they think they can access them. So it's kind of been like, I've kind of been like, ah yeah, the cows are like freaking bait for this hawk to not mess with my standards. But uh, when I a couple days after the hawk situation happened, I ended up putting babies out there, and obviously the babies have to stay in a pen. Like I can't just have them out if they're integrating. And so I was like, if that hawk comes back, I'm gonna feel so bad. But I don't think I don't think it happened to them, and now they're they're integrated and it's not a big deal anymore. But I was like so worried that they would be like panicking, just stuck in the view of the predator with nowhere to go to hide. Yeah. Because that, I mean, so one thing that's just this is universal of birds, period, that I don't think a lot of people realize is birds can be startled to death. Yeah. Any prey animal really can be startled to the point of complete, completely just keeling over and dying. One of the reasons I'm so keen on handling your ducks, because people will always say, like, my ducks hate being handled. Pick them up anyway. Because you need to expose them to fear so that the first time they don't feel fear, it doesn't like fully engorge your system. My caldex, for example, it's really hard to scare them. I actually think if a predator showed up, they'd be like, Hi, who are you? They would walk up and like, you know, they're exposed to my dogs, they're exposed to the w between offense, because I am pretty adamant that like I think that like, especially if you have untrained dogs, that your birds and your dogs or cats should be separate. So between offense, they interact with my dogs all the time. They see animals all the time, they handle, we handle them all the time. We stress them out a little bit every once in a while, you know, just to make sure that their fear response isn't so, so, so intense.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah, it's actually kind of you reminded me of another funny story that I just feel like I need to tell. So, again, back when my ducks were living at Duck Dad's parents' house, my sister-in-law has the cutest little ragdoll cat. Now, he's an indoor-only cat. One day, he put his little claw on the sliding door, like the mesh screen, opened it, and got out. I was like not, I I how do I say this? The cat was still pretty young at the time, so I was like, maybe they're letting it be an outdoor cat now, which they would never do. But I I thought, oh, okay, I guess it's out there now. Some of my ducks, it was like donut and pumpkin, I know it was them, like went up to the cat immediately. They just like had to check it out. And I'm like, and this is a big cat. Like, I I mentioned the breed specifically, so you're not picturing like a little little guy. Like, recto cats are big. They just like walked right up to it. The cat was more scared of them than they were of him. But I'm like, you guys do realize like the cat could have eaten them if it wanted. So stupid. But like they had no fear of it, but yet they were like scared of the fox. It's interesting how they just pick and choose what's scary to them.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

They really do. But keeping them, I mean, you do want to make sure that you're keeping them at some degree. They have somewhere to go where they at least, I mean, even if they're not necessarily completely safe in that location, they can feel safe, especially if something is lurking and you're like not home. Um, because the door to my coop is open during the day. They're not safe in there, but they feel safe and that's what matters. I mean, they're safe because they're in their big secure run and they're not nothing can actually get in there. But they're not necessarily. necessarily safe to their conception, like to what they understand. They're not actually, I don't I explain that terribly, but I think everybody knows I think we'll know what you mean. Yeah. So that I think brings us to the next point, which is Chrissy's firm stance on water in the coop overnight, because it is something that a lot of information has been being spread about lately. And a lot of misconceptions about ducks are being applied to justify lack of water in coops overnight. And so unfortunately when you look at any animal, you have to, when you think about your animal husbandry, you have to look at yourself and decide am I doing this for the convenience of myself or am I doing it for the better of the animal? Or am I trying to find a balance? And I'm going to let Chrissy take it away because this is her thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

So one one of the biggest reasons that I see for people not keeping water in the coop at night is because they're like, well the ducks are just sleeping. Why would they need water? They're just sleeping. They can get water when they wake up in the morning and they go outside. And that is just a big misconception about how ducks actually function because ducks do not go into a deep sleep at night like chickens do. My chickens go up on their roost at night, they sleep throughout the night they wake up in the morning and go outside. They don't need food or water in the coop at night because they wouldn't eat or drink it anyway. Ducks on the other hand have a much different system of sleep and wake periods. They can sleep for a couple hours and then be awake for a couple hours and repeat. So I have cameras in my coop and I see my ducks so active every single night. I have literally had to like lower the motion sensitivity on my cameras because they are so active that they would kill the batteries on the cameras so quick. They get up they eat they drink sometimes the the drakes chase the hens around they are they're doing things at night. They are not just sleeping and they shouldn't be just sleeping because that's not a a duck's natural sleep and wake cycle. So now that we've established that your ducks are awake throughout periods of the night the second reason that I see a lot of people say that they don't keep water in their ducks enclosure at night is because they're messy. And the thing is they're ducks. Mess, in my opinion, is just a part of owning ducks. And honestly I feel like even if you don't have water in your coop at night they're still going to be messy because they poop a lot.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Now they also just so everybody knows they poop water. So even if you're not putting water in your coop overnight they're taking the water from the wherever you do have it and just pooping it into the coop. So it's like you might as well put the water in there.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Yeah. So I do understand that water in the coop does make it more messy because they're ducks and they love to splash it out and get their bedding all wet. For me what I like to do is I have their water in one of those flock party duck water buckets. And so it has like these little divots on the outside where the ducks can fully you know dunk their bills in and then I put that in a larger rubber feed pan. So most of the splashes are contained within the pan and that I can just dump out. Of course they still do get plenty of water around the floor of the coop but thankfully because my coop is large enough I can just clean the area around the water bucket more frequently whereas the whole coop doesn't get a full bedding reset maybe three or four times a year. And so that has helped a lot. There are also other systems where you can say take a five gallon bucket and drill some big holes into it so your ducks have to stick their head into the bucket that can help reduce mess in there. It's not that your ducks need to swim at night. Honestly like I think we've said before on the podcast it's really important for ducks to be able to dunk their nares, their eyes and be able to splash water on their back. They don't need to be able to splash water on their back at night. They need to be able to splash water on their back and for most of us just providing a pond during the day is absolutely perfect. But my biggest thing when it comes to nighttime is ducks do not produce saliva like we do. They live in a dusty environment whether you use the most dust free bedding in the world they produce a lot of dust themselves.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

And can you imagine getting like a fleck of dust or a piece of bedding in your throat at night and not being able to clear it away because you you're not producing saliva and you don't have water I texted Chrissy one night because I I was out and it was like during we were worried about predators and I was sleeping out in my camper and I said it was like it was like 1 a.m or something and I said if you ever need an argument for your whole water in the coop overnight thing I can hear my ducks choking right now. They have water in the coop so they were able to deal with it as should be but I was able to hear them choking in the middle of the night on something. And Chrissy actually does food in the coop overnight.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

You do feed overnight yep I don't I don't have a strong stance on you have to have food in the coop overnight. I just prefer it that way.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Yeah my doctor seems to like it I used to do feed in the coop overnight I stopped because of rats.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah I got sick of rats and so I stopped doing it and that's that's a completely valid point because keeping food in the coop absolutely will attract pests. I have not had a problem in my coop I think just it's an Amish built shed so and I have like hardware cloth underneath the bottom so rats can't chew up through the floor. But if it ever did become a problem I would pull food right out of there.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

I monitored weights to see like is there even a significant change between their weights with 247 access versus just daytime access. And no everybody maintained weight everybody was fine. Everybody adjusted to it really quickly I actually most recently switched my standard duck flock over to daytime feed nighttime nothing except water. And that seemed to work perfectly fine. So I do that now the only thing that I'm gonna have some beef with because this is my first year doing no feed overnight the only thing I'm gonna have beef with is winter because of the reduced light hours. And so I feel like they're gonna have feed in the coop as of right now my game plan is they're gonna have access to feed part of the night. So I'm gonna go pull it at like nine o'clock at night. Does that make sense? Yeah and you can even just monitor their weights and see see what works. The other cool thing about winter is the ground is frozen so the rats are kind of screwed a little bit so there's that. Like maybe I can just put it up in the in the coop and see how it goes but I haven't I when I finalize a game plan on how I'm gonna approach winter doing the daytime only feed access I will let you guys know but I have not decided yet.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yeah honestly I feel like your coops are much more rat proof now that they have like three layers of flooring so it might not be a problem for you but we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Rats are freaking annoying they're liquid they get into everything they get they just if they're determined enough I swear to God I hate them. I think I have an owl right now so I'm hoping he just kind of cleans up the issue and we go into winter clean slate. So I thought it would be nice I've been cheering that guy on I'm like don't kill my ducks but those rats all day go after them. The other thing that I wanted to add to this conversation in general was something about wild ducks because wild ducks again don't sleep through the night and also they spend their entire night on water. So they do have continued access to water throughout the night I know a lot of people think that that is not the case but yeah no they spend their entire night out on water. They have 247 access to water and so I think that that is something that we should be incorporating into our routine. Is it inconvenient? Yes but also if you don't think that ducks are messy you're probably not giving your ducks the right environment because ducks are messy. And so if you have a very sterile and clean environment for your ducks that's like picture perfect and super super easy I think both me and Chrissy have pretty manageable duck enclosures that stay relatively clean but within reason. We don't want to create a sterile field for a duck. Ducks are meant to make messes they're meant to create wet environments they're tolerant to those wet environments they're inconvenience for us they're inconvenient for us humans but as a part of the animal and we should be allowing them to engage with those natural behaviors as much as we can find balance. It is a balance yeah but I would never come here and tell you that ducks aren't messy at all because they are yeah and they should and if they weren't I know because I've watched them if they were not messy then I wouldn't have I wouldn't be providing them with the resources that they need because that's the only way to make them not messy.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

You know what I mean? I 100% agree. And I do think that sometimes it does come down to a matter of like people are like their entire coop gets soaked in one night. That could be due to the fact that you have say too many ducks in too small of an overnight coop or you're giving them an open bowl of water at night. I used to give my ducks an open bowl of water at night and you know what pumpkin and donut did every single night as soon as I filled that water bowl they would get in it and bathe in it. And yeah, it was messy but like it was just part of owning ducks and I'm glad that I have found a better way now but my thinking is that if you have a coop that's like on the smaller side and so it's a bit difficult to put water in the coop you could always consider attaching something to the outside of the coop and like drilling a hole so they can just stick their heads and get water that way.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

I'm planning on doing that. That's my goal I've been telling Chrissy I've been trying to design this thing in my hat I want to make an attachment that fits the water that has a wire bottom and I wasn't gonna add a hole the main reason is is because it would limit the amount of ducks that could access water. This is so insane of me because I'm like what if they're all choking at the same time it's not insane. That's like my brain goes to or just like say the duck that's choking. There's a duck that's just sitting there being a jerk bag drinking the water and then the choking duck can't get to the water because there's like only so many holes. So I was going to create like a bump up and there was going to be a wire bottom because I I texted Chrissy about this because I was like but would that be bad for their feet and she's like no like it's one area like one wire bottom area. You know like they come off the wire they aren't on the water wire 247 and that would just drain the water out of the pen constantly so that it was never sitting inside the pen. That was one of my ideas to try to reduce the fact but I do what Chrissy does I just I have the waterer in my coup. It doesn't have to be swimming water like I said you don't the the biggest the biggest goal with overnight water is to stop them from choking. It's not to make sure that they have that day like we said a lot of people get confused that they they think that the ducks need to have enough water to dunk their entire head and splash the water down their back overnight as well. No a standard waterer as long as your duck can soak its nares that's the most important thing for overnight. They can hang out until the morning to clean up and do all that other stuff as long as they have access to that every day. But overnight we just want to make sure that they don't choke. So we're just making sure the important thing when it comes to the choking aspect of ducks is dunking their nares fully so they can blow bubbles and clear their airway and dunking their full bill and their eyes if you can manage it with certain waterers. But they don't get a they don't get a crazy waterer overnight. It's a pretty standard water they don't have a pond in their coop they don't have that much water that much water isn't good. It's gonna make an entire mess and I just clean out the section of the coop where the water is more regularly and that's it.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yeah that's all there is to it. Fun fact so my ducks are separated into two sections at night. There's the whole flock and then there's the sugar shack which is just sugar Mr. Whip and bubbles. Sugar Mr. Whip and Bubbles have an open rubber bowl because none of them are willing to swim in it. They're so polite with their water. They don't even they really don't even splash it which is like not typical duck behavior but they're a group of not typical ducks. Half of them are blind sugar's sugar I want to talk about one other thing when it comes to water in the coop during the spring summer fall providing access to water in the coop can be pretty easy. I do understand however it's not as easy in the winter. In the winter I use heated dog bowls when using heated dog bowls the ducks will jump right in them and splash some of the water out which is not ideal. In super cold climates the ducks splashing all the water could splash all the water out it could turn into ice overnight and then you have an icy duck coop which again not ideal.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

It happens to me every year.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Yep last year I was literally out there with like not an ice pick but picture an ice pick and a hammer like picking the ice out of the coop because I you know I don't want their coop to be covered in ice it's not good to have a crazy amount of humidity in there. Luckily they're not chickens so it's not as big of a deal but when you're building your coop you want to ensure that you have a really good way for humidity in the coop to escape. You want a lot of ventilation you don't want drafts in there so I prefer to put ventilation points up high and also to help the humidity escape. I can see why people would not give their ducks water overnight in the winter obviously I don't prefer it. Like ducks having water overnight is a hill that I will die on. Like this is my Roman Empire. This is probably my strongest belief when it comes to raising ducks but I guess I'll give people the pass in the winter because I mean why though like if you don't have electricity there you go you don't have electricity in the coop like I consider myself lucky to have electricity in the coop yeah nowadays you can get like I don't have electric in any of my enclosures but there's so many things that you can do to slow freezing.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

So one thing that happens to us is like our duck's waters freeze over like it's a thing that we deal with but one thing we'll do is we'll go out there you can you can make a saltwater jug. Have you ever seen that you put salt water and put the jug in the water if you don't have electric to your coop and it you they might not have water per say the full night sometimes I wake up and the water had frozen over and I'm like whoopsies and I move you know they they made it through most of the night with water though. Does that make sense? I mean I think that it just reduces the probability of something going wrong that they had more access to water and then sometimes that'll happen but the other thing that I just do is solar panels. Get yourself a little solar panel it doesn't it doesn't take that much it doesn't take that large of a solar panel to run a small bird bath water heater, a submersible one. Get a bird bath water heater and just put that in the water. Get an open top water this is really helpful you get an open top one so you can drop it in the top and it keeps the water from freezing and then you have water all night. And it's not that hard it's not that expensive either that's a good thing. It is a little bit more expensive to keep their ponds unfrozen if you don't have power that is a struggle that we will experience this year. I'm probably gonna have to drop a solid 500 bucks on a big solar panel for the whites enclosure because I can run extension cords to this enclosure but that enclosure it would just be a pain in the butt. So I think I'm just gonna get a big fat solar panel for those guys. But yeah nowadays with solar panels you can get enough electric pretty much anywhere you need to in order to run something small like a little bird bath heater that'll keep your water from freezing.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

And my other idea for water overnight in the winter and even really during the day in the winter is that if you're having problems with your water bucket is frozen, just have two water buckets. One stays in the coop overnight when it gets frozen you bring it inside bring out the one from inside outside.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

You want to know what my genius idea was last year?

SPEAKER_00 36:57

What?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

That I never actually tried but I wanted to just to see if it worked to tell people about it is I wanted to get a cooler a big fat cooler and fill it with water so that it was insulated and drill holes in the top so that it was like more insulated that the ducks could potentially duck their heads in and then like surround that with hay because one thing that I noticed is my goat's water never freezes ever. And it's exclusively because it's packed with hay because like we bury to keep the water stable we like bury it into the ground and fill the bucket and it never freezes in the winter it's crazy. Like even in their their the goat house. Yeah so I was thinking maybe that would work with like a cooler if you drilled some holes in the top because the insulation on the sides and then the ducks could walk up the hay to get the water. That was another idea I had but I never tried it.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

So my omelet insulated chicken waterer does a great job. We do get colder here than what they recommend to keep the water unfrozen. I think they say like 10 degrees for 10 hours it's okay. That water isn't designed for ducks if they had like dunk cups on that thing I would I would buy that immediately.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

I need omelet to start making duck products so bad. Yeah. I I would be the best day of my life I would be a product we would be their first customers oh yeah I would be stoked um because that would be super helpful. But yeah Chrissy said like the heated dog bowls those are really helpful um and all of those don't require a large solar panel like you can get away with getting yourself a small solar panel just to run those things they even make solar they make solar power to everything nowadays so you could probably find it granted the solar power doesn't help you as much overnight but if it like charges and stores yeah the energy then you can tap off of it. So you have to make sure you're I don't ask me how a solar panel works. I have solar panels that's how our house has electric I don't know I don't know what they're doing. I don't dex not solar power yeah I don't know how my house is working when the solar is when it's night outside don't ask me so I don't know smarter about solar that is how you get it done even if you don't have electric that covers it I feel like I've talked about this so much recently that I've just like got it all in the back of my head and now I'm like is there anything else I need to say because I just were concise on it.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

I just I could talk about this for a while.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Christy's gonna do like a full uh she's gonna have a thesis on this because she's gonna like go do studies outside.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

I could because I have like been reading studies and things and just trying to to further prove my point that yes ducks can survive without water overnight but as your owner you should be providing them with a way to thrive and you should be taking care of them in a way that is most beneficial to them versus beneficial to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Yeah it's that means giving them water overnight. To be completely honest with you it's not that inconvenient. Like as somebody who does give them water overnight it's not that bad. I can promise you I do it like it's not like I'm talking out of my butt and I don't actually do it. I it's like I have to take the shovel and scoop the little tiny bit of bedding that got wet every and it's not like I have to do that every day. I do that every so often ducks I people also don't understand because they think like a chicken scent ducks can handle their coop being wet. It's fine. It's not the biggest deal in the world they're built for that you don't have to worry about parasites like it's the it that's the thing about this is the beautiful part about ducks and their mess that people don't lean into enough is let them make a mess. Let them have a mess because guess what? Okay there's like parasites if I put my chickens in my duck's coop overnight they would all die probably they'd probably get parasites like God knows how many parasites because it's disgusting. Sometimes I think I'm gonna get parasites from being in their coop when it's gross. So but they're built for that they can handle that. It's completely, you know, they're that that they make the mess and they're built to deal with it.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

And essentially You just reminded me of another point that I have because I have seen quite a few people say well I don't give my ducks water overnight because it's bad for the chickens and they leave in live in the same coop separate them.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

My recommendation would be to not keep ducks and chickens in the same coop so me and Chrissy are both very I know a lot of people keep ducks and chickens in the coop successfully. I think that if you can do it without compromising either animal so be it. You do it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 41:13

So I have kept ducks and chickens in the same coop before and it ended very badly which is why I don't recommend it. It was your ducks get like did your chickens get sick? No the ducks ended the chickens they were males? Yeah you're one of the few people that I actually know that that's happened to yeah okay so I was in like middle school I had khaki campbell drakes in my silver apple yard hens and then I had chickens and they were all in the same coop and my khaki cambell drakes my poor sister I never discovered a dead bird growing up. For some reason it was like my when my sister would randomly go out there she would find dead birds. And so one day my poor sister goes out there and we had like I guess kind of similar to like a livestock watering trough that the ducks would swim in. And so it's like pretty high up the off the ground so I wouldn't have expected the chickens to ever like go in it at least not on purpose. And there's a drowned chicken in there because the ducks made it with the chickens which is really bad guys really bad. And I then discovered after the first incident that my ducks would drag my chickens to the pot. So at the time I didn't know better. I thought I have friends that have ducks and chickens that live together and they've never had a problem so I can do it too. And then I lived and learned and that is why I try my best to teach people and educate people not to do that because I've seen what happens when it goes wrong and I don't want you to have to witness that or be like my sister and discover the dead bodies.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

Yeah they're all gonna look like peanut the one type except worse. Yeah no it's it's really bad. Um I've never risked it I actually never housed my ducks and chickens together ever.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

Yeah because you probably did more research than I did when I was in middle school.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

I actually don't think I did I don't know why I didn't do that.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

I just never did and I never well there there's just so many reasons that I don't that I I think I can take care of them better with them living separately because like they both have different substrates and the substrates that each pen has works best for each species.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Also chickens are so low maintenance why would you ruin it with a duck? Does that make sense? Like I clean my chickens coop so infrequently that if I had ducks in there I would be cleaning it so much like and that's my coop that I just can be like you know what I'll do it next week. Like they'll be fine. You know what I mean? That's like my coop that I don't have to feel like I have to do constantly because the ducks definitely require more like coop maintenance. And so that's why like I would never ruin their clean little area because by putting a bunch of wet messy ducks in it.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

Yeah. So I lie there is actually one more thing that I want to say about this topic of mess in the coop I Hemp bedding in the coop. I absolutely love hemp bedding. I think both of us use hemp bedding from Eaton Pet and Pasture, which is incredibly absorbent, and that helps a lot with the mess in the coop. So originally when I first had ducks through like four or five years ago, I used pine shavings and it was horrible and it smelled so bad and it it would get soaking wet. And I had the hardest time because it would get so heavy because the shavings were so wet and it was just not ideal. I switched to hemp bedding. I was skeptical about it at first, but it seriously changed the game in my coop because it's so absorbent and it somehow maintains the ability to stay pretty lightweight. So it's like not as much of a pain to have to clean the coop. And I think that if we're using a bedding like pine shavings, because they're not very absorbent, the water that the ducks splash out of their bowl is just going to spread throughout your whole coop. Whereas with the hemp bedding, because it's so absorbent, the wet bedding is just the bedding directly around the bowl because it's not like leaking out everywhere else into the coop.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

I just experienced this in like real time because I my tractor supply was out of hemp bedding for like two months. I was like trying to get it. And I like I clean my coop like on a whim. So like I'm not the kind of person that like always orders online. Like I like to be able to go get my bedding at tractor supply when I need it. Yeah. And so my tractor supply was out of the hemp bedding, the Eden Pen Pasture hemp bedding that we like for like so long. And so I was using pine shavings for a bit. And Chrissy like always swore that like it's so much more absorbent. And I hadn't really paid that much attention. Um, like I always I always knew that the hemp did so much better when it came to brooders. Like I liked, I preferred to have for brooders because brooders also get super wet and disgusting. And then I used pine shavings for two weeks and I was like, oh my god, I'm in I'm in hell. Like this is terrible. And it did exactly like Chrissy said. When I went to clean out my coops, and since I have track decking, like my floor is completely waterproof, my floor does not absorb water, period, which is what I wanted because I didn't want it to rot out. When I would clean out the pine shavings, there would literally be standing water that I had to like pull out of the coop. Whereas with the hemp, it fully absorbs everything. And now I'm like, even if I understand that hemp is expensive. Like a lot of people complain that not everybody can afford hemp. Totally get that. I it's really expensive. Is it worth it? Because in my opinion, you will buy way more bags of pine shavings than you ever will hemp. Yes. Yes. The other thing that you can do is your entire coop does not have to be one substrate. You can mix and match sections of your coop with various substrates. I do this a lot in the winter. So, like, I'll have some parts that are one bedding or some parts that are hay or straw. Because I actually do utilize straw. I don't like straw in the coop because of the way that it handles moisture. However, in the winter, I like straw in parts of my coop that are not going to get super wet. So I put straw down in certain areas. So you could do if you really want it, like if you're trying to move to overnight water, but you're really worried about the water in the coop and everything like that. Hemp is so absorbent and it's so awesome for around the water, especially. Get a b one bag of hemp. Put that in your wet area of the coop and do whatever substrate is affordable for you in the rest of your coop. And honestly, what's gonna happen to you because it happens to me, is that I just start using the freaking hemp everywhere because it's so awesome. But I don't blame you. You don't, you don't have to stick to just one substrate. You can have a mixed substrate coop. It's totally fine. Your ducks will actually probably love it because they view it as variety and they go all over the place and they get all those mixed textures, and that's awesome for you.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

I put I put straw bales in there in the winter just so they can like get up off the ground and sleep on them and they love it. And they also just love to stick their bills into the bales and like wiggle around. And they're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

My duck seems so excited when I bring in straw.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

But I think that's finally it for me on this topic because although I could talk about it all day, I don't think anybody wants to hear me talk about it all. Next topic of the day. This week's breed of the week is the mallard duck. Emily and I both have one mallard, if I'm correct. I used to have two. I have one now. Yeah. So before I talk about, no, I'll I'll talk about fun facts about the mallard first, and then we can talk about our own experiences with them. I have some notes, so I have some notes, so don't mind me if you see me, if it looks like I'm reading off of a paper. But I would say mallard ducks are probably the most well-known ducks. They can be found just about anywhere in the world besides like Antarctica, I think. So when most people think of ducks, they think of mallard ducks. And a fun fact is not only are there wild mallard ducks, but there are also domestic mallard ducks, which are the ducks that Emily and I own. A really interesting fact about mallard ducks is that all domestic ducks except Muscovies are believed to have been derived from mallard ducks. And Charles Darwin actually came to that conclusion because he noticed that all domestic duck breeds have that tail curl on the drakes that mallard ducks have, and mallard ducks are the only wild species of duck that has that. So he came to the conclusion that all of our domestic ducks have been derived from mallard ducks.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

Nowadays, I'm sure there's been even more genetic testing, but I do think that's a really cool fact about the reason that that probably is is because with the exception of Muscovies, the wild mallard is the largest breed or species of domestic duck that there is. So when farmers were looking for meat, they were obviously you just said largest species of domestic duck. Largest species of wild duck that there is. So when farmers were looking for a meat bird, they were obviously gonna pick the mallard because they were gonna have the best chance of making that bird larger than starting out with, say, like a wigeon, you know, because where would we get with that as such a tiny little bird? So that also because they're so common. That also might be why. I've me spitballing off the top of my head. I don't actually know any of that to be 100% true, but it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

It makes a lot of sense. And I think it's really incredible to look at a mallard duck and just think that they have been selectively bred into pecan ducks, Australian spotted ducks, call ducks, runner ducks. Like all of these ducks started as a mallard, and then other things were mixed in, and other things were selectively bred for. And now we have all of these cool-looking domestic ducks of different sizes. It's it's pretty cool. It is really cool. Mallard ducks tend to be about two and a quarter to two and a half pounds. Sometimes I've heard of them being about three pounds. Egg production for a bantam, I would say, is pretty good. They lay anywhere from 60 to 120 eggs per year. Messer Farm cites that about 70% of their mallard ducks lay bluish eggs. My mallard is a female, her eggs are white. Um, but I do think it's cool that some of them can lay bluish-colored eggs. They are considered a bantam bird in the according to the American Poultry Association, and they are an accepted breed per the American Association per the American Poultry Association. And when I actually went to the National Poultry Show in Ohio a couple years ago, I believe the reserve champion bantam duck was a mallard, which is pretty incredible because it's hard to beat out the call ducks there. All right, here's here's something I really have to talk about with mallard ducks. So something that is incredibly important for you to know if you have mallard ducks or you plan on owning mallard ducks, is that there are laws in place in the United States regarding marking mallard ducks as domestic. So in order to keep everybody, including the ducks, safe, mallards have to be permanently marked in some way so that they can be differentiated from wild mallards versus domestic mallards. So there are four legal ways that you can mark a mallard duck before six weeks of age. So they can either have the removal of the hind toe on their right foot. So usually at a day old, that hind toe just gets clipped off. Their wings can be pinioned. I think that might be my least favorite method, but essentially that just means that they are clipping off a portion of the wing. It's very different from wing clipping, which is really just feather clipping. Pinioning actually is wing bone clipping and cutting off a part of the wing that will never grow back. You could also band one of their legs with a seamless metal leg band. That has to be done when they're young, obviously, because if you can't put on a seamless band once they're fully grown, because it would, if it was big enough, it would just fall off. So you gotta kind of get it at the right age. Or you can tattoo a number or letter combination on their webbed feet. So my Mallard has her back toe clipped and she actually so I got her from someone who had to rehome her because her mate died and she was sad and lonely. But they got her actually from a like hunting type farm. So people would go there to buy ducks to then hunt them. And they actually gave her like paperwork and stuff to go along with my hen to prove that she's a domestic mallard now. So now I have that paperwork just as kind of like a, I don't know what you want to call it, a uh security blanket. It's kind of just a security blanket to like prove that my duck was not taken from the wild and that she is, in fact, a domestic mallard because they do look very similar to wild mallards. Generally, they are gonna be a little bit bigger just because they were domesticated for a reason, which was meat and egg production.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

Mine is so fat, and I was laughing so hard because one day we had a couple of wild mallards that flew in, and Watkin flew my fans to go be with them, and he was like a bowling ball. He's like chasing them, and I was like, because I if you're not looking at them side by side, the domestic mallards are so similar to the wild mallards that you might not notice the size difference. But when you see them, the other the male that she had was so sleek and Watkins trudging over them.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

That's what I always say about wild mallards. They look so sleek and slender and perfect, and then you look at the domestic ones and you're like, Fa. Fat boy, not his chomp. It's funny that you say that because Metzer Farms, who is the sponsor of today's episode, actually lists their mallard ducks as being too chunky to be considered show quality. Yeah, Mide's a fat boy.

SPEAKER_01 54:08

I do love him though. One thing I will say about the wild, or not the wild mallards, the domestic mallards, that if you're interested in that breed, it is a very feral breed of domestic ducks. Yeah. Mainly because they're they're skinish, they're skinnish breed. They're very in tune. And like Chrissy was talking about, a lot of them are actually bought and used for hunting farms. And so they have incredible flight ability. One thing that I told Chrissy when she actually got her mallard for the first time is that I said, You're gonna notice this bird can fly like never, no bird you've ever had. It can fly so well. They can fly so incredibly well.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

So her wing, her one of her wings is actually clipped. So I've actually not seen her fly. You haven't seen her fly yet? I assume she's gonna molt soon, and then she will grow her wing feathers back and I'll see her fly.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

Yeah, they fly. Mine's always been flighted, and he flies. I don't even know where he goes sometimes. Sometimes he's just he's in the beyond. And I'll look up in the sky every once in a while, I'll be like, is that our duck? And I'll realize it is because he comes back down, like in the sky. It's not even like we talk about call decks and stuff being good flyers because they can get up in the air and they can go. But the uh when it comes to a mallard, you can expect that to be above tree line. It will get up there. They're very, very good flyers.

SPEAKER_00 55:16

So when I was five and my parents got me my very first duck, I got the blue Swedish, my sister got the mallard, it flew away because it was capable of that. And there was a bigger pond across the road. So of course it flew away. Again, you live and you learn. I did not know better at the time. I was five, but they can fly, they really can fly. And so if I would say if you get mallards, I would recommend penning them versus free ranging them because of that flight factor and their skittish factor. Yeah. But at the same time, like Watkin does fine in your flock as a free-ranger.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Watkin does fly. Okay, so here's the T on Watkin. Watkin is a bird that I've accepted might just disappear one day. Like he and and it the reason that I do that with him is because he is a bird that I could never enclose. He I he has had far too we Watkin's one of the birds we've had the longest. So he's never been in a pen. He's never been clipped, he's always been allowed to be free and fly and go wherever he wants. He's very feral, he's one of our least handled birds. He's incredibly skittish, hates humans. He tolerates us. Like if we go out there, he'll come up to us. But he's always like pissy in the corner by himself somewhere. He has such an attitude. And so rather than taking away what I believe is important to Waquin, which is his freedom, I've accepted that that bird might die. It's just kind of messed up, but I've accepted that he's allowed to free range, he's allowed to live the his life to the fullest, and he's still here. Every day I go outside and like we'll have hawk activity or like something goes down, and he's still there. So I don't know. He's doing it, he's really good at surviving somehow.

SPEAKER_00 56:54

Um, but he he was also he was raised in that environment, and you still do take precautions to protect him. He's gonna be he just he just flies over the fence when he wants.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

Oh, I mean, he can get the best you can. He could get knocked out by an eagle at some pond I don't even know about because sometimes I swear to god, he flies. I don't even know. Like he he just goes, and I think it's cool. I mean, will I ever own a duck like him again? No. Would I ever have a mallard that I capped the way that I keep walking again? No. But walking to take him from the life that he has and to put him into a different circumstance, I he would be miserable. I can enrich my call ducks because they're human-friendly. Because they like me. I can give them, I can entertain him. I can go in there and put a little toy in there or splash pad or something and you know, give them a they'll have the best day of their life. They don't care. Him, if I went in there and put a splash pad down, he would literally just sit in the corner and be like, I hate you more than anything I've ever seen in my life. And so it's like, I can't, I can't give it to him. Like he needs, he just he is the way he is, and I'll never have a bird that I ha have that way again. Yeah. But he gets to live out his days. And if he goes to the pond and an eagle takes him for dinner, the eagle gets dinner and Walken had a good life. And that's how I see it. He's also old now. He he's like a million friggin' years old. I swear to god, that thing's never gonna die. I like I like waiting for him to be old, and he's like, I'm kicking. Like he's gonna be, he's got those good mallard genetics.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

He could go for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

He might be here forever because I'm like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 58:17

I the only reason I got a mallard was because it needed a home, and I happened to have a home with phantom ducks where I could keep it in a safe enclosure and it was a hen. So I was like, yeah, why not? I would not keep a mallard Drake in with my call ducks because it would be big enough that I would fear it would hurt them during mating season.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

However, they're also horrible shit, like in my opinion, one of the worst breeds of Drake for mating season.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

Yeah, because they're so sleek and slender and they have the ability to be so fast and catch hens. But I do think that if you have, if you're raising a breed like call ducks or Australian spotted ducks, for example, which are pretty difficult to find sex, if you wanted to add mallard ducks into your flock, those are pretty easy to buy, only females. Metzer Farms actually offers female mallard ducks, and they're a good enough size where you can keep them with call ducks and Australian spotted ducks, um, but they can help fix your ratio. So I think that yeah that would be a good idea. They are, you just have to know going into it that they're gonna be most likely more of a skittish breed compared to call ducks.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

Yeah. 100%. I think that they would fare, I think that they would do really well with Australian spotted ducks. Actually, I think that that would be a nice a mallard Australian spotted duck mix flock would be a really nice flock. I think the female Australian spotteds, even if you had a mallard male, the female Australian spotteds are larger in size and a little bit sturdier than the call ducks are, and I think that that would pair up. That would pair up decently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

Today's episode is brought to you by Metzer Farms, who just so happens to sell mallard ducks. Fun fact, Metzer Farms sells over 30 breeds of ducks and geese, as well as a couple breeds of chickens, turkeys, and guineas, which is super cool. I had the pleasure of getting to go to Metzer Farms in their Tennessee hatchery and see the process of how ducks are handled there. And I absolutely love them. I think it's incredible that you are able to pick from such a wide variety of breeds and buy ducklings from a family hatchery that truly cares about every single duckling and adult duck in their care.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

We love Metzer Farms. All of my standard duck flock right now, we were saying, except with the exception of very few are actually from Metzer Farms. The majority of my call ducks are from Metzer Farms, and a big majority of my geese are from Metzer Farms, and some of our most beloved birds are from there. We can't recommend them enough. It is the absolute only place I source my birds from if I am not going to find a specific bird that they don't have. So they are my go-to. If they have it, I'm getting from them. I trust them completely with the birds that I get from them, and we love them so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:51

Me too. Some of my absolute favorite and most friendly call ducks have come from Metzer Farms. And I'm so grateful that they sponsor our podcast and then we get to support them and they support us. Yeah, we love them so much. So thank you so much to Metzer Farms. So if you are looking to get some mallard ducks for your flock or one of many other breeds, be sure to check out MetzerFarms.com, which we'll have linked in our show notes. Another interesting fact that I actually learned from Metzer Farms is that mallard ducks have one of the best fertilities out of all of their breeds of ducks. So they actually have about a 90 fertility rate, which is pretty good. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

Sort of it has to do with the fact that they're so in tune with the wild ancestor, so that their fertility naturally stays higher, as we see in wild populations.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

I just think that mallards are so cool. And now that I have one as an adult, I really just love to look at her and be like, wow, like you are the original. You are the blue. And everyone found everyone else here is just like a derivative of you. And it's it's cool to like just look at them and compare them and see like how far we have gone to have taken a mallard duck and turned it into sugar.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

Yeah, seriously. Or if you look at a Rowan duck, a ruin duck, sorry, I say that wrong, I've talked about that before. But if you look at a ruined duck and you think, like, oh my gosh, like we made that thing huge because the feather patterning is the same, and then you look at a ruin and it's like, oh my god, selective breeding, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

Yeah, many hundreds of years. So I think that wraps up our discussion on mallard ducks. If you have any thoughts on mallard ducks, or if you have some in your flock, feel free to tell us about them in the comments below because we would love to hear about them. Me and Chrissy went too long because we always do.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

So we are actually going to be skipping follower questions this week. We are going to do those next week. We might even do just a follower questions only week next week where we just answer follower questions because we really enjoyed the last time we did that. Before you guys head out, don't forget that we have Duck Ladies Podcast merch. You can check that out in our show notes. We have t-shirts, mugs, and we also have each of our personal merch collections in there. I'm wearing one from my merch line today. That's one of my favorite shirts. It's so I love that shirt. Support your local quack dealer. Christy has on merch from her Dunkin' Ducks line today. So make sure to check out all of those pages. It helps support the podcast and both of our channels independently and all of the animals that we keep on our homesteads. Thank you so much for watching. That's all we got for this one. Bye, guys.