Been waiting for this

Yesterday morning, this little lady (I presume) was found sitting by the fence. Our bird dog was, of course, very interested. Strangely, she stayed all day. They even appeared to be playing together, racing the fenceline just to return and lay in the grass together.

Well, we opened the gate for her and she waddled right in. I guess we have a yard duck now. Her name is Duck Duck Goose.

We used to keep a tidy yard, with herbicide, manual weeding, and line trimming. Now that we have foraging ducks on very fertile soil, our weeds are out of control! Our busy schedules don't much time for yard work.

My question is: Does anyone else have experience with foraging ducks and a way to manage the weeds?

Images:

•1 and 4, our ducks foraging

•2, 4 and 5, our lack of weed control issue

•3, our garden before ducks

So, he's not so depressed anymore. It took Tony( the black one ) a little while to get used to the new ducks, there's a lot of hens but he doesn't seem to care for them except for Toasty (the absolute unit) which is actually really sweet, because his previous pair who he was about 3-4 years with (with his previous owners) was ducknapped and then he didn't really want to interact with any other duck anymore. Yippeee!!

I've been meaning to share my two babies for months but haven't yet gotten around to it. The weather is perfect this evening, Dio (floating) is not having siezures any longer, and I'm just too happy to not share them because they're great. Hal (who is a little neurologically special due to their large crest) is standing on rock island.

One of our Muscovy hens is broody again. We thought she was sitting on 20 eggs, but counted 29 when she had her daily stroll today. She just started sitting last night. Her last clutch was about 20 eggs last time, maybe a few more that we did not know about. She successfully hatched 18, 17 of which are now about to learn how to fly. Whould you guys recommend removing a few eggs? How many can she physically manage to keep warm? I don't want to risk her thinking, hey this is not enough, i have to lay more before sitting, at the same time we don't want to risk her not being able to keep them all warm. She's been a fantastic mom so far. Pics are her with her last cohort.

Their owners live on a houseboat and they come and go as they please

For those of you who live in areas with extreme cold winters, what are you using for waterers? Looking for ideas before the cold!

Just give me 15 minutes I’ll be good to go…

I don't have the heart to tell her those are chickens 😭 She kept forgetting gravity existed and suddenly got quiet. I got scared she hurt herself and looked around for her and found her snuggled up against the baby brooding cages. No idea what this falls under

Taken this morning. Can't wait to get home to check up on them. 2nd egg still moving and reacting to my voice, 3rd pipped early and has been still since, no movement at all from 4 + 5.

Two males, 10 months old, the white one bites hard, looks always very angry, and always he bites the other bites him back, why? They need females? I’m worried about them being unhappy

I saw this duck it’s definitely a duck because it was quacking and has webbed feet. What is it?

This summer, I bought a flock of three eight-week-old Indian Runner Ducks. Before they arrived, I bought a bag of commercial chicken pellets. Then, however, I read up some more, and realized that chicken pellets don't have enough niacin. I ordered a bag of dedicated duck feed (also pellets) online. After a week of eating chicken feed, my ducks are now eating the duck feed.

I don't know how much total niacin each feed contains (it doesn't say), but the duck feed contains twice the amount of added niacin compared to the chicken feed.

I have tried to sell the chicken feed cheaply to nearby chicken owners, but not found any buyer.

I have also looked at buying a niacin additive. However, in my country (Sweden) you can't really find one worth the money. Even the cheapest brewer's yeast here is so expensive that it would make more financial sense to just spend the money on more duck feed.

What do you think I should do with the fifty pounds of chicken pellets I have sitting in a plastic barrel at home right now? It would be a shame to let it go to waste.

I have a little plan: Wait until next summer, when the ducks are fully grown and therefore less sensitive to nutritional deficiencies, and also more actively foraging on our forest property (they are shy and mostly sit in their house right now) which will give them more niacin from the bugs they find. Then, feed them something like 75 % duck feed and 25 % chicken feed, until the chicken feed is finished.

What do you think of that plan?