I am starting this new page for a friend that ask me too, on some
DO'S and DON'Ts and WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST
I researched or read to get most of this information and with trial and error, tried it!
Mandarin and Wood duck, mate for life so I PAIR them.
Call ducks I trio, unless the eggs are showing pour fertility and then I will swap drakes with those hens, to see if it is my drake, and if the problem persist, I pair them off then.
I use a broody hen (chicken or duck) to start my wildwater fowl and call eggs for 10-15 days if possible before putting them in a incubator.
I never throw out late eggs without candling them to make sure of death.
I never mix eggs that I am hatching, ex. turkey and duck or start a load of eggs and a week later add some to it.
I buy minnow, crickets, worms and make a bucket of mill worms for extra protein and snacks.
I pinion my ducks before 3 days old if actual cutting the wing joint.
If I want the beautifulness of full wing, I take a pair of sissors and clip the right wing tip feathers ONCE a year due to molting.
I do not buy from sellers that do not control there flocks, meaning, farmer brown has a pen full of chickens that all breed and continue to all breed, this will cause you a genetic flawed flock, you wouldn't marry your first cousin, why? You may produce a 3 armed child and birth defects.
I do not brush my ducks teeth (that is a free one).
I do brush my dogs teeth.
I do keep a flock breeding record, or on the domestic breeds, I seperate the hatchlings into another pen and have two flocks of the same breed and sell off the orginal layers each year this is the simpliest way for me with the large number of critters I have, and do have the plastic numbered breeder leg bands and a list of what criter is paired with what critter along with the hatch age of the critter along with who I purchased it from and the blood line, same for the off spring hatched from them.
I do use Tylan, electolites, and powder antiobiotics that mix in water, I do have a above ground brooder type pen I call the ICU to issolate sicklings
I do not buy any auction critters, but I do take extra unsold critters at the end of the year if I have not sold them to avoid feeding extra mouths through the winter.
When I buy a new critter, I put it in ICU, give it a shot of Tylan, keep it off the ground and seperate for 14 days, nothing like loosing 50 chickens from buying a new rooster to add to your flock.
I do spray my nesting boxes, roost, and pens down with a hand and pump sprayer with a purchased treatment solution we mix before adding new hatchlings and removing ground ready critters out
I do turn my dirt with a shovel or tiller monthly in my ground pens.
I have had power failure for 3-days and like to froze to death, did nothing to my incubators and still had all to hatch with some scattered and delayed hatchings.
I have never hand turned any eggs, it hatches using the egg turner or it want, I just do not like the opening and closing of my incubator changing my constant levels.
I hang out on the BYC (Back Yard Chicken) duck forum, and read and learn daily, this is like reading the holy bible for me, it is a daily must!!
I think outside the box alot, and compare everything to a women, ex. egg and womb, chick and baby, hot and cold, in and out, you have to think logically.
I use alot of house hold over the counter medicines to treat with, mites-seven dust, runny nose--benadryl, diahrea--pedialyte, angel wing--medical cloth tape.
Cold, wet, not breathing, I have done CPR on ducks and the best thing to use to bring anything back to temperature or life is a hair dryer.
Non medicated feed only for ducks, I use laying crumbles for the first few weeks after hatching, and then add in some 16 % pellets, then only pellets.
Low protein feed for geese, I use a mixture of corn and grains to get a low protien, no pellets for them, because I can only find 16%, and geese need 10%-12%.
Turkey, peacock, and pheasants need no less than 28%, I feel this is why people don't have good luck with this breed of species, they cut feed bill corners, you can not do it with turkey and pheasants.
If you can not afford them or do not have the time for them, do not breed, or hatch them!!
I humanely dispose of any sick critter that has no hope of survival, I believe in euthanasia, I sure hope if I get cancer that is non-treatable, somebody lets me make the decision, I want to be put down, and do not keep me brain dead on a respirator to cause my family daily agony and run a giant medical bill up for them to pay when I am dead and gone to my next life.