Category: Farming

I wish I could find more information about duck color genetics that pertain to the breeds I have, Magpies and Runners. My reference book has a lot of info on other breeds, but not these. Here are the two Silver Magpies, the drake is the one with more color on his back:

Can you see how they are kind of grubby? I am vexed by this, when I bought  them last summer at the county fair poultry show, they were perfectly white and pristine. Now, not only are they stained, but their wing and tail features are scrappy. I work hard to keep their pen clean (as clean as possible given that they are ducks and enjoy making everything muddy). I tried switching their food. My next guess is that they need their own duck-sized bathtub, so they can clean more effectively via swimming. They have a large, horse-size rubber pan in their pen, with a float valve to keep it full, and they could get in that to bathe. But they don’t seem to anymore; so I have to solve this problem next.

And finally, the lone Black Runner hen (her mate died after a serious leg injury). She is a looker, I think! Kirk was the one who wanted these, he thought they looked sleek; I think I’m starting to agree.

So, I think all four babies are some combination of these three ducks. The two dark babies are growing fast, and look very robust; I suspect they are the cross-breds. Perhaps they have “hybrid vigor”?

I wasn’t going to keep cross-breds originally, I like the idea of having fine-looking purebreds that produce expected and consistent results. But, I’m now realizing that I’d either have to pick one breed and stick with it or keep all the ducks contained in small pens so they could not cross. I enjoy different breeds, and may not want to stick to one. And, I like to let them free-range, so then can’t control who’s getting together with whom. So, my plans may change; I may just stick with good laying breeds, and let them cross freely, selecting for the most robust ones that are nice-looking, also suitable for training dogs (and maybe eating?).

So here are the healthy babies, cute as buttons!

They sure like to play in their water, I have to keep re-filling it! For now, they are in a wire dog crate (to keep dogs & cats out) with cardboard lining it (to keept them in). The crate is in the unfinished upstairs of the house. This weekend, I’ll have to start building them an outdoor pen. I am thinking of some kind of “chicken tractor” style of house that I can move easily, but I have yet to design it.  

I’m curious to see how the ducklings’ markings turn out. The “parents” I have are a pair of Silver Magpies, and a Black Runner Duck  hen. The two big babies we’re thinking look half Runner already, and look as though they’ll be black and white. The yellow guy has faint markings on his back, so he may be a silver Magpie. The little guy, I’m not so sure…

Last Thursday was the due-date for my incubated duck eggs to hatch (day 28). This was my first try at incubation. I started with 30 eggs, but only half of them were fertile/good, such that at 1 week, I could see growing embryos when candling them (that’s probably due to the “daddies” being a little slow on their job at first, and also I didn’t store them the right way).

A week before the eggs were due to hatch, I was convinced the remaining 15 looked good. But, on their due date, only one baby had pipped. He made it out ok on day 29. Several others pipped late, very late, on days 30 & 31. They had trouble getting out, we had to help them. They were all dried out and stuck to their shells, and very weak. On day 32, I figured the rest were not going to happen, so I “autopsied” them to assess what went wrong.

Some looked like they hadn’t developed very far. But others were fully developed. Four or five had not yet absorbed their yolks, but were fully formed, so they must have perished just days before their hatch date. And, this last one looks like a perfect baby, yolk absorbed and all, so he must have died very shortly before hatching. Sad, but educational to see how they fit inside that little space.

So, according to my reference book, this can happen when there is too low humidity in the incubator, or too much temperature fluctuation. I have to admit, like a little kid, I was guilty of opening the thing a lot to keep looking at, and tinkering with, the eggs. And, we did have weather extremes which would have impacted the ambient temp in the room, making it hard for my modest incubator to keep a steady environment. Next time, I’ll try making a wet-bulb thermometer to monitor the humidity, keep it moister, and discipline myself to keep the lid on!

The other sad news is, the cat got one of the babies out of the brooder cage I made- she was more clever than I anticipated, and I didn’t realize how weak and slow the babies are their first day (after that, they are quite zippy and able to escape capture attempts).

The good news is, we have four healthy babies; so though my percentage is not so good, these guys are cute and I learned some things for next time.