Tag: Ducks

Top Five Reasons You Should Be Eating Duck Eggs

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1. Duck eggs are healthier. The number one reason you should be eating duck eggs are that they are healthier. Now we all know the value of the “incredible, edible” chicken egg, but did you know that duck eggs are higher in essential vitamins and minerals? The free range ducks seem to have the highest quality of eggs, duck eggs in general have more vitamins and minerals including vitamin A, B6, B12, Niacin, firemen, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, folate, and retinol. Not to mention they have a higher protein content! Whew!

2. Duck eggs have more Vitamin D. Especially if your ducks free range, duck eggs have more vitamin D than a chicken egg. Vitamin D has a long list of benefits including skin and bone health as well as some evidence that it improves your mood.

3. Duck eggs are the special ingredient in many Baker’s products. Did you know that duck eggs make for a fluffier cake, a lighter cookie, and a moist and delicate addition to most bakery items? The higher protein content in the egg whites of a duck egg make them a fantastic choice for baking.

4. More omega-3’s! By now most people know how important omega threes are, but still many people don’t know how to add them to their diet without supplements. Omega-3’s help keep your heart healthy and may reduce inflammation in the body. Inflammation is generally understood by scientists to be a potential cause for many diseases. Also there is a link to omega three consumption and it’s positive affect on mood.

5. Lastly, I truly believe duck eggs are the food of the future. Ducks are a very easy animal to care for. Their feed is simple, their needs are basic, and they are consistent layers as chickens generally have months where production slows down. The thicker shell of a duck egg makes them last longer than chicken eggs, and their unique make up generally allows them to be a suitable substitution for those with chicken egg allergies.

What We Love About Duck Eggs vs Chicken Eggs

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This isn’t the most loveliest of photos but we were feeding a few eggs back to the ducks and chickens (benefits them by providing protein, omegas, and calcium from the shell) and this is just ONE duck egg yolk.

It was hard to focus on but man, the duck egg yolks can be so much larger which increases the good fats and omegas that come with it. The color comes from all the free-range time they have during the day. They forage on all the plants and bugs.

The duck eggs are usually white, but we will be having some chocolate runners laying in a few months and they will lay mint colored eggs.

Here are some of our duck eggs:

Here are our chickens eggs:

Chicken eggs do taste very similar however with the higher fat content a duck egg yolk has, I’d say they are better for baking and fluffing things up.

Should You Be Giving Your Ducks Vitamins?

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Should I be giving my ducks a vitamin?

One of the most frequent deficiencies in the nutrition of ducks is a niacin deficiency. Mainly seen in young ducks and ducklings fed incorrect feed meant for the older chickens in the group.

Niacin is also known as vitamin b3. This vitamin is essential for the health of developing waterfowl. They also need more than your chickens do. Some chicken feeds do have enough niacin in them, but the best would be a waterfowl feed already formulated for their dietary needs.

Niacin deficiency is ugly and it’s important for the duck owner to supplement the best they can. Allowing them to free range can help as well as niacin is in bugs, fish, worms and other things they can root through and find. With symptoms including low weight, trouble walking, leg development issues, and other irreversible damages, niacin is a big deal. Crack out the peas!

With that knowledge, the biggest question is… “can I give my duck a human vitamin.” Well, yes and no.

Because of how often I see and hear this question, first off, niacin is niacin. It’s niacin if it’s in peas, salmon, sardines, brewers yeast, liver, or a supplement.

The problem with it not being waterfowl specific (human vitamins) is how hard it is to give the correct amount evenly to each bird and what binders and fillers are used in the human vitamin supplement. How much niacin do the birds need? Are they getting it from natural sources, and their feed?

Personally, I think making sure that your birds have a varied diet with natural food sources of niacin along with a your niacin added waterfowl feed is a fantastic way to make sure they get their optimal niacin and nutrition in general.

So our consensus is…. to skip the human vitamins and make sure they have a varied diet, the correct feed and if a supplement is needed, it should be waterfowl specific.

5 Ingredient Coop Refresher Spray for Smells, Lice & Mite Prevention

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There is a lot to be said for essential oils and how they can keep your coop fresh smelling and keep the bugs away. Many air fresheners have harsh chemicals that can irritate your chickens or ducks, so DIY is definitely the way to go.

Especially in a place like Florida where the summers can be both sweltering hot and soaking wet, a good coop spray is totally necessary.

Though using neem oil is probably my favorite natural way to treat for nasty bugs (on both plants and elsewhere), neem oil can be hard to find and I don’t use it regularly, so this has become my go to recipe for those in-between moments for freshening up of the hen house.

I’ve narrowed down my mix to only the basics and without further adieu, the recipe is as follows.

5 Ingredient Coop Refresher Spray for Smells, Lice & Mite Prevention

• 1 cup of white vinegar

• 1 cup of water

• 1 generous squirt dr bronners soap

• Approx 15 drops peppermint essential oil

• Approx 20 drops tea tree essential oil

If you’re interested in why this is my “go-to”, peppermint essential oil helps to repel bugs. Plain and simple. When it gets humid and hot, the fruit flies have a field day on any spilled water, or anything else. For some reason, flies hate peppermint!

The tea tree essential oil is good for warding off both lice and mites. This can be sprayed in the coop, on roosting bars and in nesting boxes.

Vinegar is a natural cleaner and a good bleach alternative for some applications. I try to use it as much as I can in place of any harsh cleaners. Vinegar is biodegradable, but isn’t a registered disinfectant and isn’t strong enough to kill germs like staph, so though it’s good for this freshener, this spray is not appropriate for treating any major bacterial or biosecurity issues.

What’s The Best Duck Breed For New Duck Owners?

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The answer for us is simple.

Khaki Campbells all the way.

Lots of people ask us “what’s the best duck breed to start with?” Well, there’s no right answer, but I do have to admit these little Khaki Campbells are quiet, cuddly and very sweet.
Good egg layers too, and don’t take up much space!

Adding More Ducks To The Homestead

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After adding 5 more ducks to the farm, we now have 4 chickens and 9 ducks. Life is… awesome.

We adjusted the coop a tiny bit to accommodate our floor-sleeping friends. We took out the automatic waterer for the chickens. They don’t drink at night and outside, we have bins and buckets everywhere full of fresh water.

The ducks always require water, as a way to clean their mouths, so we put a little rubber bowl in the back on top of a cinderblock and filled it full of water. I caught the chickens having a few sips from it too, so we are good there.

The metal hanging feeder is for all, and is much less messy to work with when the huge waterer is not in the way.

If we head out of town, we will put the automatic waterer in the coop.

How To Easily Tell If Duck or Chicken Eggs Are Fertile

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WE HAVE FERTILE DUCK EGGS!

After trial and error, look for the bullseye when you crack a fresh egg open. If it’s a white dot with no bullseye, the eggs are most likely not fertile.

Here is what a fertile duck egg looks like:

This is the second egg we cracked open and saw a bullseye. The rest are going in the incubator!!!

This is what one of the eggs looked like when it wasn’t fertile yet:

I found this chart below to be super helpful:

Harris Farms Nurture Right 360 Incubator from Tractor Supply Review & Experience

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Update on April 2nd, 2019 –

I’ve successfully hatched 12 ducklings with this incubator. We originally set 18 eggs in and some of them just weren’t fertile. We didn’t have any real issues but than again, we hatched ducklings. I didn’t spritz the eggs, I did notice though that if you let the trays get too full with water, the humidity gets all messed up so if you make sure to dump some out and add fresh water, it could help.

–

The Harris Farms Nurture Right 360 incubator from Tractor Supply has been good so far! Very easy to understand and manage.

The instructions were basic and informative. The incubator provides the following:

Rolling Egg Turner

  • Simulates hen hatch for higher hatch rate

Auto-Stop

  • Stops turning eggs 3 days before hatch day

External Water Top-Up

  • Easy water fill and humidity control

360° Induced Air Flow

  • Advanced 360 degree induced airflow technology

Build-in LED Candler

Suitable for Various Sizes of Eggs

  • Chickens: 22
  • Ducks: 12-18
  • Pheasants: 22-24

I couldn’t find any reviews online so I just bought it based on the fact it has a candler, automatic egg turner, etc.

It has a guard on the vent so I knew it was a newer model. Good to go there.

To calibrate and reset the incubator, you need to hold down the menu and minus sign for 6 seconds.

I’m incubating 8 Khaki Campbell x Pekin eggs and today is day 2! 26 left to go. I have the temp set to 99.5 degrees and the humidity runs between 52-58% due to the humid climate I live in!

I’ll up the humidity the last few days before hatching. This is so fun!

The countdown is on!

This was not sponsored nor compensated.

Certified Wildlife Habitat

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wildlife

Our homestead has been recognized by the National Wildlife Federation along with the Florida Wildlife Federation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat. We achieved certification by creating gardens that offer food, water, cover and places to raise young for wildlife and maintaining them in a natural, sustainable way.

We were able to achieve this largely in part due to my husband’s hard work on our natural pond, our herb & vegetable garden, amble fruit trees, converting our shed into a coop and also raising free-ranging chickens and ducks organically which provide food for friends and family.

4 Things We’ve Learned So Far

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1. Chopped straw vs pine shavings in the coop has proven to be a great experiment. I didn’t know what to expect but I’m super excited to report that the chopped straw seems to stay cleaner longer and has been much easier to spread around..

2. Peppermint is a wonderful thing to grow in the garden, especially when you have chickens. Certain plants (like peppermint) will spread and take over. I use it daily in the coop, for the chickens to snack on and also, to freshen up the coop. Planting a small above ground garden in a tub, box, etc.. with herbs like Rosemary, Thyme, Peppermint, Lavender will be your coop cleaning friend.

3. If you decide on chickens, go big or go home. Within 3 months, we had moved the chickens from the small coop we had, into our shed (more about shed coop on the blog). It doesn’t matter how fancy it is, you’ll soon realize that you’ll want more space. There are so many options, it might even be worth it to build your own.

4. Chia, flax, clover and wheatgrass are great to grow around your yard, especially when you have chickens. They will forage and get extra nutrients from these things but they’re also super easy to get going, they sprout within a few days and provide awesome ground cover.

So there you go… thanks for following us 🙂

DIY Natural Duck Pond (no chemicals, pumps) with progress photos

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Swipe for gradual pond progression. It's only been a few weeks... I never thought having a pond would be so peaceful. I've asked my husband to write a little post about it for those interested in doing the same. Stay tuned.

First we got chickens, and the chickens needed a coop. So we turned our shed into a coop. When we got ducks though, what they really needed was a nice and natural pond.

After doing a little research, I learned there are many types of ponds that you can build yourself, much easier than I had imagined also. Somewhere in the search for inspiration, I decided that making the pond as natural as possible would fit our homestead lifestyle much better than installing pumps and waterfalls and using artificial chemicals to keep the water clean.

A natural pond not only spoke to our lifestyle but also kept in line with our low maintenance creed.

If you’re thinking about a pond, it’s as simple as starting to dig, and that’s exactly what I did. I picked out the spot, roughed in the shape and started to dig. I took out some rocks, and a few roots but mainly just started to dig. I wanted to go down a little bit further than the maximum depth I wanted to make up for the liner and under-liner material, and I wanted some areas deeper than others, so keep that all in mind as you dig.

Once I got the shape and depth, I dropped in some old carpet pieces to protect the liner from any roots that might try to puncture it, then followed that with the liner. I tried the best I could to make the liner smooth to the kidney shape we dug. The liner overlapped some on the soil and I kept it in place with some rocks around the border.

After this, I filled it up with water, and that was the last time other than topping off here and there I’ve had to add water. It’s mostly now filled by rainwater.

As far as a “natural pond” goes, plants are your filter so choose them carefully. There are plenty of plants that help, but I think looking at actual natural ponds helps to give you an idea what plants grow in your area and which ones help sustain a natural aquatic biome. If you’re lucky you can forage some for yourself and cut the costs.

Another concern was mosquitos, this easily was addressed by adding guppies, mosquito fish, and goldfish. They kept the water moving a bit and actually eat the mosquito larvae.

Simple additions like little solar fountains or sprinklers can help keep the water moving to discourage mosquitos also and help oxygenate the water some.

Lastly, make it your own! Plant around the edges, add solar lights, enjoy larger fish like koi, or just enjoy the natural aquatic pondscape you’ve made and the local plants you’ve foraged.

Here are some progression photos:

It can be as simple or as difficult as you like, but with my creed of simple being better, a natural pond is a fun, creative way to make the most out of your backyard or property and yes, the ducks love it!

Ducks & Chickens Happy in Same Coop

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The ducks and chickens are cohabiting greatly. We put them all in the coop at night. The chickens go to sleep and the ducks party.

At night, the ducks snuggle in a corner opposite the older gals. I have shown the ducks the ways of the hanging feeders too and they are loving life.

We originally bought separate food but the ducks love to eat what the chickens eat so we ended up with a feed for both.