Duck Care "Quake quake"
Breno the Protector
Duck Care
quake quake
Temperament / behavior
Silver applyard ducks are calm, intelligent, fun and easily tamed. They are active foragers . Who settle in where they are well fed. Silver appleyard Ducks in general are social birds they show emotions for each other like Love, fear and often squabble over silly things like you follow me! They are good for children to demonstrate responsibilities and care for they observe the interaction between family members. Ducks do need family or at least a partner around them if not, they can suffer from depression and loneliness, crying out for company so having two together is a must.
They are not like chicken and will not scratch up your garden their web feet are passive around your vegetable garden and will not eat into your pumpkins or eggplants and only take care of your pest like slugs and snails but may tear at your Boc choy or letters but not silver beet.
Q.1 Why is it important for Silver Appleyard ducks to have a companion? What might happen if they are alone ?
Q.2 How do Silver Appleyard ducks differ from chickens when it comes to gardening ?
Please answer these question at the bottom page in form for Duck care
Shelter
Adult Silver appleyard ducks can sleep at night outside under trees between shrubs or reeds without a duck house but if you do have aggressive predators such as dogs or cats this can be a problem for myself all the cats that have entered my backyard have not attacked my ducks because ducks are a larger creature who will often run at the cat with their neck out to say go away and the jumpy cats generally runs and watches from a distance thinking what was that.
A duck house/palace is handy to protect them, to isolate ducks if needed and protect ducklings or shade them from the heat.
Q.3 In what ways does a proper duck house help ducks thrive in a garden ?
Q.4 Why is it important for a duck house to provide shade during hot weather ?
Ducky Palace
Main entrance
Two separate levels
Egg collection hatch
Design by Beneficials Gardens
Shade & Edibles
If you don't have trees “Plant Them”, this will bring a stable climate for your new friends and if you plant fruit trees like apple, avocados, mangoes, oranges and nectarines your ducks will forage around the trees allowing water to penetrate to the root zones while fertilising the ground and enjoying the snails, slugs and insects. Add some WA native ground covers, shrubs and trees as well to bring in pollinators and bird to feed on the spiders. The natives will need to be separate from the fruit trees because they require less water and fertaliser.
If you do not have established trees you will need to erected a shade sail to protect the ducks from our WA hot temperatures.
Q.5 Why is it important to plant trees in your garden ?
Q.6 What types of fruit trees would you like to taste around your ducky space (Mulberry) ?
Q.7 Why should you add WA native plants to your garden ?
Lots of figs near the front door YUM ..
Pollinator: Birds & Bees Hecker Native Pin Cushion
Mangoes in the Back
Water
Clean constant water, in containers doted around your green space or a medium to large pond depending how many ducks do live with you. Empty the duck water onto your trees by bucket weekly which makes perfect liquid fertiliser you can hook up a dirty water pump from Bunnings for about $200 including parts to extract the water from your pond, that functions like a hose or tapped into your reticulation with a filter to water your trees.
Feeding
Silver Appleyard ducks are active foragers and like to eat slugs, Vegies from your kitchen or shopping center bins inside you can grab the lettuce from the bin at the fruit and veg section or go out the back to the general waste dumpster bins and see the wastage of fruit and veg that is going to land fill, grab some for your ducks as a treat like water mellow, kiwi fruit, oranges, pineapples which they love soaking and floating in their water and feed the rest to your compost this will convert the methane (Climate killer) produced from green waste in landfill. Turn this poisons gas into soil for your edible garden and you will be doing one good action for Earth and your family.
Collecting eggs
Silver Appleyard ducks are determined sitters and love to raise a family and one female will produce 200 to 250 eggs which you can be 1 to 3 a day you can give to your neighbors, friends, family, teachers or trade for home grown food or coffee at your local shops. Collect your eggs daily or at least twice a week in the heat so they do not go off and cause food poising. If you have lots of shady trees the ducks will nest under them which helps with the eggs shelf life.
Eggs in the morning :)
Eggs
Duck eggs are nutritious and delicious with a mild flavor exactly like chicken eggs but with a little more "egg" Personally I cant taste the differences the eggs are larger than a chicken egg with more protein and are perfect for cakes or omelets or on their own. The flavor of a duck egg can depend on the duck's diet and whether it has access to free range foraging.
Duck eggs with Paprika
Calcium
Your female ducks will need calcium because having eggs does take it out of them. Blending the eggs shells produces for you a mix of fine blended shells which you mix with of the duck food or pellets it is good for their bone structure and for you.
Eggshells blended to digest for ducks
Maintenance
If you do house your ducks together in one spot it will become really stinky with flies change the bedding of the duck pen weekly or fortnightly I use grass clipping from my property maintenance business, which dry out and is just like straw or hay make sure it has not been sprayed with poisons because this will end up in your eggs and into you adding chopper up lavender branch’s when the lavender warms up it covers up any smells and calms down every body :)
When raking up the bedding I put on my edible garden and this doubles as great fertiliser and mulch to retain water and moister meaning less watering.
Free range means your ducks can roam freely. It's easier to manage because you can just hose down the area, and sometimes I don’t need to do this at all in winter and most of summer since I have fewer paved areas.
Q.8 Why is it important to change the bedding of the duck pen regularly ?
Q.9 Why should you avoid using materials that have been sprayed with poisons ?
Q.10 What benefits do you get from using the old bedding in your edible garden ?
Weight
Male Silver Appleyard ducks can weigh up to 4kg, but a healthy duck should look alert and bold and be able to get around easily.
Noise
The female can quake loudly the quack is lower than a dog barking this may happen if she is upset as a warning, if they are running out of food/pellets or communicating with their partner usually this is low mutters when they foraging together.
The drakes or males are very quite quack they will announce themselves or call to their mates and the quack is much quieter than the females.
Medical
Ducks are resilient and tough but if one hurts its legs or has breathing problems you will need a good veterinarian like the Unusual pets vets Osbourn park Dr Lucinda 08 6117 7450 or Riseley Veterinary centre 08 9329 9222
Bruno the Protector says Good bye and be Kind :)