This is a little bantam duck called an apple yard.
And she is only about four weeks old and very anxious to get back to her little buddies
over here.
But I love having ducks around and we've had plenty of poultry and fowl out here since
the beginning of the construction of the garden home retreat and they're just fun garden
ornament if you will.
But the ducks play a specific role in terms of helping maintain the insect population
here.
They love to chase bugs and they seem to rather chase the insects and eat those than eat the
feed that I give them.
Now there are several other reasons why I like having a few ducks around.
They're comical to watch.
They're great pets for children and they're extremely disease resistant.
And these little guys can take a cold winter.
Their mother and dad weathered over beautifully up here this past winter.
And now we've got about eight of these little guys so we'll have quite a flock by this fall.
Now some of the other companion ducks we have include a white Indian runner as well as a
magpie.
The magpies look a bit like penguins.
They're black and white and they all get along just fine.
It's just fun having them around.
You ready to go back with all your buddies, your brothers and sisters?
Isn't she the cutest thing you've ever seen?
Okay, here you go.
Good girl.
Alright kids, come on.
So what I'm doing here is I'm putting down some straw.
We like to keep the pens nice and clean.
It's been really wet this winter.
A lot of rain and it actually snowed today which makes things kind of miserable.
More miserable for me than I think for these ducks because they actually can take the cold.
These are Alesbury ducks.
It's an English breed.
They're part of a conservation effort we're underway with here to try to preserve this
breed.
There are many different strains of Alesberries and so what we'll begin doing is separating
out the choice, drakes and hens that we want to save eggs from.
When it's really cold and miserable like this before we start setting eggs and separating
them we try to keep clean straw in here.
In this space they're protected at night.
No predators can get to them so they get locked up in here.
We have a light on which helps stimulate egg production early on and then if you look out
here we've got an exercise area for them, it's kind of their playground.
So we have some swans and some geese in here but the rest are Alesberries and then they've
got an area down here that connects to the pond which allows them to swim and clean and
you can see a lot of these that are really wet are preening themselves and they'll dry
off in here by tonight.
So we've got this housing in here.
We built these little A-frame houses for them to lay eggs in.
It's okay.
Okay.
Let's give you an idea.
What's beautiful about these ducks is that I love their sort of apricot colored bills.
This is a nice looking drake and the reason you can tell it's a drake is that it sees
a little curl on its tail here so about another week or so my sister-in-law and I will come
out here and we'll pick out the best drakes and the best hens and sort of pair them up
in pens and we'll gather the eggs from them because we're wanting to make sure that the
size and the form and the shape of these birds remains the same just as they have been since
the end of the 18th century and we'll base that on a standard called the standard of perfection.
There you go buddy.
Standard of perfection so we know what the shape and confirmation, the weight, the color
of the bird needs to be.
If you're enjoying following what we do here at the farm, tell a friend about it and check
in regularly.
Look at how whole.
Four months ago we had some baby ducks delivered here to the farm.
Five different breeds.
Yeah, five.
Can you believe it?
And among them were these Indian runners.
Oh, we got all kinds.
We got the white-crested duck.
We got blue-sweetish, black kuagas, but these Indian runners are really, really amusing.
They walk like penguins.
They're very vertical, aren't you, my dear?
This is Edna.
She's one of the girls that's growing up with the whole flock.
And we have a whole flock because they're excellent for eating bugs.
Hey, you want to take care of bugs in your garden?
Why spray chemicals?
Get some Indian runners, right?
What are some of your favorite bugs to eat?
Slugs, snails, spiders.
That's what she's saying.
You see how I speak duck.
Anyway, these Indian runners were bred in Southeast Asia to go out into the fields, mainly
rice fields, and eat insects.
So I think they're great for the small farm or backyard for insect control.
They're really funny to watch.
These birds are flat-out comical.
Now they're not very large.
The little hen ducks, this is a hen here, and she weighs about four pounds.
The drakes may get up to five, maybe five and a half, and that's it.
And they're great egg-layers, aren't you?
Yeah, they produce eggs like you cannot believe.
Now what they're not good at is getting broody and to sit on the eggs and hatch ducklings.
So what we may have to do is take some of Edna's eggs that are fertilized and put them
under a surrogate mom in the way of a muscovy duck or another duck or even a chicken hen
or put them in the incubator.
Is that okay?
She like that.
She says she's a working mom.
When it comes to caring for these ducks, they're really easy.
When you put them in the garden, you want to make sure that they can't get out or run
around the neighbor's yards.
That's not a good idea.
You also want to make sure they have plenty of water.
These ducks love water, but they don't have to have water to play in.
If you have water, they will definitely play in it.
They need plenty to drink.
When it comes to food, we give them a high-protein purina feed, which they really like.
Plus they get all the insects and grass and so forth that they want from their foraging
in the garden.
You want to make sure that they have a full-balance diet.
There's nothing cuter than a baby duck, and they're great for children to raise.
But if you're looking for a pet duck, I don't know how to hear this, Indian runners aren't
the best, because they're pretty high-strung and they rubber up.
Don't hear this.
There are other breeds that are bigger, larger, and calmer, a little more docile, better for
children.
Anyway, Indian runners are a great duck to have, because they produce so many eggs, they
can take care of your garden, and they come in lots of different beautiful color ways.
This is one called a fawn white Indian runner.
They're white Indian runners that I've raised for years, and they come in all different
colors.
So check them out.
Hey, if you're enjoying these farm raise segments, tell your friends about them, and make sure
you subscribe to eHow Farm Raised, and get some ducks, right, Edna?
Yeah.
You want to go join the others?
Okay, let's go.
Go get them, girl.
