Recent content by Goose_Willis

Thanks everyone for the input. I bought brown ceramic eggs because that's what was available to me locally and after using them for about 2 weeks I can confirm that they still work even though my ducks lay white and gray eggs. They always leave the ceramics on top of the real eggs but they're...

My ducks are doing the thing where they lay their eggs everywhere and change up their nests weekly so I'm thinking about getting some ceramic eggs to encourage them to lay in a few designated areas instead of anywhere that they can dig a hole. I want to get brown or colored ceramic eggs instead...

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, I really appreciate it. Yeah, the Rouens were odd, we had raised male pekins as meat birds for years and I really wanted to try duck eggs so our neighbor gifted us the rouens but I think it may have been more of a gift to the neighbor for...

I have Buffs and Cayugas that are almost a year old and I have some questions about duck broodiness. To preface, I had a pair of Rouens growing up but I don't think my experience with them was typical. The female hatched and drowned two large clutches of ducklings then drowned her drake. Her...

Update: Thank you everyone for the advice. I'm so sorry to disappoint but none of the methods I tried from this thread helped with this gander and his aggression increased and started rubbing off of the whole flock so they were all given VIP tickets to the freezer club. The gander was 45...

So last week I was sick with a stomach bug and didn't have the energy to do anything more than feed and change waters. Up until then, my 4 Buffs were only laying an egg every other day and my 3 cayugas weren't laying at all so I figured it wouldn't be too bad when I finally got in the coop this...

Thank you for the detailed response. I agree that he's hormonal, my ducks are all hormonal right now and my two drakes have been squabbling and chasing each other around. I thought that I had been hands on with raising them, I haven't been away from them for more that 6 hours for their entire...

Thanks, I'll give it a try. Hopefully he's open to the idea of letting me continue to be top goose lol.

That was definitely the response the boot scoot seemed to elicit.

I like the pool noodle idea, the bright colours are probably hard for them to miss since their colour vision is super good. I have mine trained pretty well with my stick, I just hadn't been bringing it out because I didn't think it was something I needed out there with me every second of the...

I don't knowingly turn my back on him but since he's free ranging in my yard he can sneak up, little bugger. I have a large walking stick that I use to herd them around with and if I have the stick out he respects my personal space because he knows the stick won't let him get too close. It...

Before when I would scoop him up he would tuck his head down and grumble softly so I guess it didn't occur to me he might go for me in my arms even though that seems so silly now 🫣. Lesson learned on keeping the free hand ready, I'm glad he just got my cheek and not my eye.

I was doing that with him and I thought it was working; I usually pick them up and carry them under my arm in a football hold after I break up their squabbles with the ducks or the other animals. I picked him up last week after he rushed me while I was petting the dog and he bit me in the face...

My 5 month old African gander (Boris) is starting to develop some aggression and it's a little worrying. He attacks all of my other animals except for his ladies which seems to be the norm for geese as far as I've read. I've had to completely seperate the geese from my ducks because they'll all...

Thank you! I had to do a similar thing with my cats last winter, I put a flap over the door to their house one day and they were like 'what is this abomination'. I pinned up the corner for awhile and they eventually figured it out.