New Mandarin duck forum

Mandarin ducks are a small ornamental breed of ducks from the far east which are becoming quite popular with duck breeders in the US and elsewhere. The North American Mandarin Duck Breeders Association has just started a new web site with a discussion forum. Please, if you are interested in Mandarin ducks, join the forum! It has only three members so far, but two are breeders of Manderins and should be good sources of information.

On the BackYardChickens forum, there have been many threads in the duck section relating to Mandarin ducks. There is one on incubating Mandarin eggs. And there is one on aviaries for Mandarin and Wood ducks.

We don't yet breed Mandarin ducks, but we do have 4 Mandy eggs in the incubator and so have got started with our Mandarin duck adventure.

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The New Muscovy Ducks

I bought a breeding pair of Muscovy ducks at the Fur and Feather Swap in Stephenson. They are the black&white critters in the center of the picture.

Directly behind them, outside the enclosure, is Imelda the Chocolate turkey. I'm letting her free-range, but she sticks close to the pens with the chickens she regards as her 'babies'.

And here are the new Khaki Campbells.

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The Little Lame Duckling

This is a picture of a duckling (on the left), only a few days old, who is dragging his leg behind him. The other duckling hatched about a day earlier than this one.

Both of them are Indian Runners.

The little lame duck is able to get around its brooder and eat and drink. I only have 4 baby chicks in the brooder with it, so he isn't being picked on by bigger birds. I'm hoping he will improve as he grows older.


Update: as of May 11th, the Little Lame Duckling, aka Claudius, is still alive--- here is a picture of her from today.

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Ancona duckling picture

I've finally gotten around to taking some pictures of my week-old Ancona ducklings! They were hatched in my new Brinsea Octogon ECO incubator, along with a batch of guinea eggs I bought off ebay. I had a pretty good hatch in it.

I tried vent sexing two of them and either they are both females or I don't know how to do it yet.

I have another batch of duck eggs in 'lockdown' that should be hatching soon--- more Anconas, plus some Khaki Campbells, and Indian Runners. I've also got some Silver Appleyards and Dutch Hookbills in other incubators. I'm going to have quite a variety of duck breeds before too long!
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Picture of my Ancona ducks

Here is a picture of my Ancona ducks. The two males are tri-colored while the two females are black-and white. They are laying very well already and I am already selling some of their hatching eggs on Ebay! I'm also hatching out seven eggs of my own and so far all seven are fertile and alive. I'm also getting some good eggs by some of the chicken hens with my rumpless Araucana rooster.  These are the auctions:

4+ Ancona Duck eggs

4+ Ancona Duck eggs (second auction)

6+ rumpless Araucana cross chicken eggs

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Too many drakes!

Last year I bought some Ancona ducks from Cackle Hatchery. I ended up with six ducks at the end of the season. I checked to see which ones had the curly tail that marks a drake (male). I identified 2 males and put red and blue leg bands to mark the drakes and ducks (females).

This year I noticed one of the red-band ducks had a curly tail. So yesterday I went in to inspect the whole gang. I found that I had 4 drakes, not just two, and only 2 ducks.

I also noticed that I had 2 tricolor drakes, not just one as I had thought. So, what I did was I took the two black-and-white drakes and put them in the pen with my extra roosters.

I'm hoping to hatch out ducklings--- both black-and-white and tricolor. I'm thinking of trying to vent-sex the ducklings so I can raise a group that has more ducks than drakes for next year. I'm also hoping to have many others for selling at the fur and feather swaps this year.
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Guinea Fowl Fever

Last year I bought a pair of guinea fowl at a Fur and Feather Swap. I liked them so much that at the next swap I bought three more. The runty one died, and two others blew away in a blizzard, but I ended up with a pair, one male and one female.

They are very nice. I housed them with my spare roosters in a pen made out of a six-foot-high chain-link dog run, with an old calf hutch for a winter shelter. The guineas quickly learned to fly out of the shelter to forage, but flew back for overnight.

This spring I decided to get more guineas. The guinea-pen now has netting on the top so they can't fly out, so I will get all their eggs. I'm also haunting eggbid and other sources looking for hatching eggs for sale. I just got my new incubator so I have greater hope that hatching eggs will hatch.

It seems like the first signs of spring is the time when I get all excited about poultry, ordering more kinds than I really need. But I'm hoping this year to hatch out quite a few to sell at the fur&feather swaps. In addition to my guineas I have Ancona ducks (who have already started to lay) and an assortment of chickens including 4 rumpless Araucana types. I also have 2 self-blue silkie bantams--- a hen and a rooster, and if I can only set them up in separate quarters I'll be set....
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