Recent content by Peter in Hungary

Hi I'm still here, but up to my eyes in it. We've no birds at the moment 'cos a pine martin decided it was hungry and broke in and killed the lot. Not nice !! We are looking to start again when I have sorted the coop (which I thought was secure).

I added niacin to the feed as above but I'm still having problems. When the ducks go lame they sit with their legs out behind them and can't stand. If you help them to stand they curl their toes up and sit on their knees (is that the right term?) rather than stand on their feet. None of the...

Hi All Thanks for the replys. Dipping into the feeding of triticale it appears that it has about half the B3 (niacin) compared with barley which I was feeding last year without problems so hopefully giving a niacin supplement which I found in bulk on line as suggested by Gooseapplefarms will...

Hi I have some Muscovy ducks between 2 - 3 months old and several have gone lame over the last 3 weeks. the symptoms are that the ducks are reluctant to get up and move around but rather sit with their legs stretched out behind them. The ducks were feed on duck starter crumbs for 1 month which...

If she has been broody for months sitting for another 3 weeks won't make much difference. Also if you do it now the chicks will be that much more advanced by the time the weather gets colder.

Wood ash for them to bath in sometimes works

If she is sitting on nothing why not get some (fertile) eggs of your breed choice and put them under the chicken. If the hen goes though the full cycle of sitting and then hatching she may take to the chicks better than getting young chicks in the hope she will adopt them

Thanks for the replies The predators we have here are foxes, golden jackals, badgers, wild boar and various raptors. The snakes are grass snakes and too small to take a duck egg. We have never had rats, mice yes rats no. The coop is fully wired so the predators are outside and can't get in. I...

I have a 4 muscovy ducks who have nested and hatched clutches. A number of false starts resulting in 3 abandoned nests, the eggs of which stayed undisturbed (I left them alone) A 5th duck was sitting on about 12 eggs for about 3 and a half weeks when the number of eggs started to go down...