Ross Acres (Ross Bantams) Exhibition Call Ducks

[RossBantams]

Stole this idea from The Moonshiner!

I show call ducks and absolutely love the breed. On this thread, I will be sharing pictures of my call ducks and stories of my adventures with them. At this point in time, I have white, pastel, and snowy call ducks. Follow along to see what it's like raising and exhibiting call ducks!

 

[RossBantams]

So to get this started, I want to rant about the difficulty and struggle of hatching call ducks. ​

Hatching call ducks is no easy job. From fertility issues to dying a day before hatch, attempting to hatch them is heart breaking yet rewarding. I spent all year this year trying and trying to hatch calls. I spent months wondering why I wasn't getting fertility on my white calls. Then my pastels were fertile, but the ducklings would die a day before hatching. I just couldn't figure it out.

First issue was that my whites were not giving fertilized eggs. I tried switching males, seperating the males for a few days to "rev" them back up into breeding, etc.. I eventually did a physical inspection on the males and realized that one of the white males had a phallus issue. It would come out. I had finally found the problem. Lucky for me, I purchased the male from a wonderful breeder and he offered to switch out males to fix the problem. I drove 6 hours round trip to pick up the new white male. Within a few weeks of introducing him to the girls, I finally got fertile eggs in my white pen.

When it came to my pastels, I was getting fertile eggs almost 100% of the time. The problem is that I kept losing the ducklings a day or two before hatch. The would internally pip, but then just quit. I read books and articles, asked experts, and posted in FB groups. Eventually, I learned to put a small air hole in the egg once the duckling internally pipped. This allows air into the egg so the duckling does not suffocate. But even this did not really help. It was like the duckling just decided to give up. Luckily, a very nice lady that is a expert in breeding calls gave me a dozen of her crested call ducks eggs to try to hatch. I was elated. I knew that her birds were valuable and she just gave them to me for free because she felt bad about my experiences this year.

After getting eggs from her, I immediately put them in my NR360 incubator. I was very precise in my measurements, keeping temperature and humidity as close to perfect as possible. Once hatcing day came, I poked a hole into each egg and placed them into my cabinet incubator (hatching time CT60) to hatch. THIS is different than what I had done with previous hatches. In previous hatches, I incubated and hatched in the NR360. This time I switched it up, since the cabinet incubator was a little more accurate and larger, giving the best chances to the ducklings. I ended up hatching 7 ducklings! One was one of my pastels, suprisingly. The rest were from the lady that gave me the eggs. I talked to her about my results, and we concluded that there must be something wrong with the nutrition of my birds, since my incubation tactics worked for her eggs.

So now my focus is on increasing/improving on the fertility of my ducks. But now the hatching season is over, so the focus is switching to raising the ducklings and getting adults ready for show. This will give me until April or so to figure out how to improve the nutritional calue of my duck feed. I will update on this specifically over the next few months.

 

[N F C]

Looking forward to seeing pictures of your call ducks!

 

[RossBantams]

Here are some pictures of my call ducks. I haven't downloaded a lot of pictures this computer yet, so these are all I have right now.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Here are some pictures of my call ducks. I haven't downloaded a lot of pictures this computer yet, so these are all I have right now. View attachment 3899925View attachment 3899926View attachment 3899927

The middle pic is of a snowy pair, right? Or of a pastel?

 

[RossBantams]

The middle pic is of a snowy pair, right? Or of a pastel?

Pastel! I'll post some photos of my snowy pair this weekend.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Pastel! I'll post some photos of my snowy pair this weekend.

Okay, that was my second guess. I didn't think mine had the eyestripe, but I'll look again. About how old were your nales before they got their green heads?

 

[RossBantams]

Okay, that was my second guess. I didn't think mine had the eyestripe, but I'll look again. About how old were your nales before they got their green heads?

The eye stripe is required for show quality pastels, but pet quality may not have it. As for the green heads, pastels don't have green heads. Snowies do though! Pastels have grey heads. My snowies start to get their green head around 4 months old.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

The eye stripe is required for show quality pastels, but pet quality may not have it. As for the green heads, pastels don't have green heads. Snowies do though! Pastels have grey heads. My snowies start to get their green head around 4 months old.

Oh wow, that totally looked green on my screen. I have three pastels that are about 10 weeks old, and I'm still trying to sex one of them. One is very clearly a female, one is most likely a male, and the third I keep switching between the male and female pens. Some days it sounds like a male, some days it sounds too loud to be a male

 

[RossBantams]

Oh wow, that totally looked green on my screen. I have three pastels that are about 10 weeks old, and I'm still trying to sex one of them. One is very clearly a female, one is most likely a male, and the third I keep switching between the male and female pens. Some days it sounds like a male, some days it sounds too loud to be a male

Yeah it's a fun but annoying game we play trying to sex call ducks If you have pictures, post them here and maybe I can help!