The Duck Revolution Blog

OUR KICKSTARTER PROJECT

2011-08-10T16:42:00.000-07:00

OUR KICKSTARTER PROJECT

About the Farmers:

We, Evan and Rachel, are young farmer/conservationists currently renting a 40ac property in Eugene OR. Our primary focus are our critically endangered Ancona ducks which we are promoting and hatching for production on small, diversified

, pasture based farms like ourselves. All breeds at The Boondockers Farm are Critically Endangered category and are most need of conservation.

About the Ducks:

About a year and a half ago we were honored to be asked to continue breeding a flock of Anconas from Dave Holderread. Author of “Stories Guide To Raising Ducks”, Dave is a world renound waterfowl conservationist. In the late 70’s he isolated one remaining pair of Anconas and from those two has recreated the breed, single handedly giving these beautiful ducks a second chance. The 13 birds we inherited from him make up the original and most important breeding stock for the Ancona breed.

Dave considers these birds to be of the hardiest and genetically pure he has ever encountered. The Ancona ducks’ ability to lay 275 eggs/year and incredible foraging abilities make them a very profitable choice for small pasture based farms and backyards in a wide variety of climates, especially ours. We are in the process of conducting a census of the breed in conjunction with The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy(ALBC) to track how many breeding birds there are in the United States. Currently Ancona ducks remain in their Critical category; the parameters are as follows:

What does Critically Endangered mean: There are fewer than 500 breeding birds in the United States, with five or fewer primary breeding flocks (50 birds or more). The estimated global population is less than 150 breeding Anconas.

The Goal of our Project:

Our goal is to hatch 400 ducklings which are hatching the day we start the project, we will raise them on our farm to multiply the current number of breeding Ancona ducks in the United States. With your help we will help the Ancona Breed by repopulating them and taking them out of the Critically endangered category. Throughout the hatching and raising we will document this endangered breed which never been done before. We will offer instructional videos of how we manage the flock and empower people to raise ducks on their own.

What we Need:

In order to rotate our ducks and Livestock Guardian Dogs on pasture we use mobile electric fencing called PoultryNet, made by Premier1. This fencing takes a large investment but less than installing typical livestock fence. Its functionality far surpasses any other options we have tried, one acre of pasture can be moved/set up in less than an hour (I mean by myself and Im 5‘2, 105lbs)!

Why we need PoultryNet:

PoultryNet keeps ducks 3wks and older contained, gives our dogs a very respectable perimeter, and adds assurance our birds will never be devastated by predators. At our prior location we had coyotes who would scream in packs only 20ft or so from the fence. Our neighbors had lost cows to cougar, and sheep were commonly taken from the field right on the other side of the fence. We are now seeing foxes, raccoons, skunks, and bobcats at our new property and have experienced one loss already, the first since we have had our dogs… but the predator didn’t make it back through the fence with our bird. We are told there are weasels, bear, and also cougar here aswell. Our dogs let it be known that these fences are well tested.

The PoultryNet will allow us not only to significantly increase our breeding flocks for next springs’ hatching season but will also allow us to fulfill some demand for meat and eggs in the off season, using the reputation of chefs to help promote the breed. Though ducklings hatch out 50%M and 50%F, in flock setting an even ratio would be detrimental to the females, so the extra males serve as ambassadors of the breed (on the plate). Raising more significant numbers of Anconas to be used dual purposefully as breeders and meat will put us in a greater position to promote and significantly improve their gene pool by only selecting and breeding the strongest, most hardy, productive, and true to type birds for breeders.

What we will reward you with:

We believe in using multi media for breed awareness, inspiring others, learning with others, and documenting farm life. We will be tracking their progress through HD video postings on the blog, and as supporters you will be able to intimately watch the growth of these rare baby ducks.

Give what you can to help this breed reach the farms and backyards that need them!

$1 - Access to updates with special “How to Raise Ducks” videos and slide shows of incubation, hatching, rotating baby ducks and the new groups in their PoultryNet Pastures!

You can view all of the updates on the blog @ http://duckrevolution.blogspot.com/

$5 - You will get to name one of the 400 baby ducks! & and all of the above!

$25 – Heritage Duck or Boondockers Heirloom Seeds 4, seed packs & all of the above!

$50 A 8x 8 Canvas Photo of your baby Ancona duck, & all of the above!

$250 Boondockers natural skin care gift basket, & all of the above!

$500+ Starter breeding flock of 15 day old ducklings (Spring 2012) and help picking which breed, Technical guidance from Boondockers to help successfully raise a heritage breed flock OR Heirloom Seed Collection, 40 seed packs and help designing your garden space. And all of the above!

KICKSTARTER VIDEO LINK

Other options we might be able to offer...

(Set of 10 Greetings cards, your choice of eating or hatching eggs, broilers, photographic/website services, duck class voucher, private farm tours)

A couple of young Anconas

2010-08-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of female Anconas ready to feather out into their adult coat

KLCC INTERVIEW BY JES BURNS AT THE BOONDOCKERS FARM

2010-06-12T23:03:00.001-07:00

SAVE THE ANCONA DUCKS

And so it begins!

2010-04-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

We got our Jamesway 252 yesterday! whew that's a relief! We are about to begin a great project that will create generations of amazing dual purpose Ancona ducks, and some other notable amazing Heritage breeds.

Ruth Stout Video on hay mulch planting

2010-04-02T04:24:00.000-07:00

Drawbacks that never seemed to bother Miss Stout include slugs and snails, she needed to raise ducks to help her every time she would go out they would follow in an area she would need. Ducks wont eat things that are established, unless its a tender green.

Where does all the fois gras come from in the US?

2010-03-31T14:36:00.000-07:00

Where does all the fois gras come from in the US? Please dont not support this type of food. There is such a thing as natural duck liver...

Pectines

2010-03-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

Pectines plural or pecten singular, are comb-like structures, widely found in the biological world. They occur, for example, on the underside of scorpions, where they are used as sense organs. In ducks they are placed on the sides of the bill and serve both as food-strainer and as comb for preening.

"Pectinate" means supplied with a comb-like structure

Keep your domestic animals domestic

2010-03-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

Why would you ever want to raise anything besides the Ancona on the farm? Biodiversity...Yes I good reason, but if you want to raise an animal that has all the characteristics of other ducks and the dual purpose of eggs and meat then the Ancona is the way to go. Raising other types of ducks in the Northwest is harder because they are not meant to be in such cold wet weather. Some breeds will do better than others.The Runner ducks are nice to look at and they are good eggs layers, but if you happen to like meat they are a very skinny breed with nothing on them. Much goes to waste when the males must be culled! The Muscovy would do ok in this area except raising them in your backyard is like trying to raise turkeys in town, you will need to pen them. They will be in the trees if you dont...! The Muscovy is not really a duck, it is (Cairina moschata), most closely related to the guinea fowl. They are in the Anatidae family, but they are wild but every means. The domesticated birds invade habits and can reproduce on their own in the wild in numbers quickly. They are not really meant to fit in the Anas Genus and I think they should be thought of differently, a wild species. In Florida they are having issues right now with how the populations of domesticated Muscovy are populating areas in cities. It would not be a problem but people seem to think letting their domesticated fowl mix with wild populations is fine, its not. If they were wild and not breed to have other traits, then they are wild but domesticated ducks are not meant to be in the wild, we create as much of a wild scenario for our Ducks at our farm but they are protected from predators and watched carefully. Here is a video from Florida showing the Muscovy in someones pool.

Hopefully if you raise animals you know the difference between a wild one and a domesticated one. The need to care for them and not let them run away and possibly overpopulate is a decision that we make and we can help to make the right one.

We recently acquired Holderread's Ancona Ducks

2010-03-12T08:51:00.000-08:00

After many years of raising the Ancona ducks we have just acquired the original genetic stock of them from Dave Holderread of Holderread Waterfowl Conservancy. We are very excited and proud to have this breed in our breeding program. We are leaving them in Dave's original (TSQ), Top Show Quality pairs to ensure that his lines are separate from ours initially. We are learning more and more about the genetics of the Ancona which are far more confusing than most other species. The dilutions and recessive genes in these ducks are amazing, they show traits from many lines back and hold them dormant, as a carrier to be expressed another year. Here is a picture of the flock at our farm on the right.

Our newest certification NPIP, National Poultry Improvement Program

2010-02-20T18:43:00.000-08:00

To get this certification we recently just had all of our birds tested for Salmonella pullorum. The disease affects hatchlings early on and is something you don't want on the farm. To read more about the testing or getting your flock tested the link below gives more specific information about how to get it done. Happy hatching!

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/animal_dis_spec/poultry/

From the USDA site: Raising chickens, ducks, turkeys, and other types of poultry--whether done for profit or pleasure--entails undertaking the serious responsibility of disease prevention. Probably the greatest single factor which limited the early expansion of the U.S. poultry industry was the disease known as Bacillary White Diarrhea (BWD), caused by Salmonella pullorum. This disease, later called pullorum disease, was rampant in poultry and could cause upwards of 80 percent mortality in baby poultry. Poultrymen recognized the problem, but were unable to manage it until the causative organism was discovered by Dr. Leo Rettger in 1899 and a diagnostic blood test was developed by Dr. F.S. Jones in 1913.

Great article on eggs and how they are sold in different countrieshow they are sold in different countries

2010-01-09T17:04:00.001-08:00

http://gherkinstomatoes.com/2009/10/16/14168/

CHECK IT OUT A GREAT BLOG!

Force fed to death

2009-11-09T21:12:00.000-08:00

If you love animals you will never eat Foie Gras again- Try to look at the Foie Gras video for more than 4 minutes, I could not watch more than a minute.

Anatidaephobia ? Really?

2009-10-07T14:48:00.001-07:00

Anatidaephobia — the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you...

How To Get Rid Of Duck Phobia

2009-10-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

How To Get Rid Of Duck Phobia

Duck phobia or fear of birds is also known as orinthophobia. The most humiliating part of the entire story is that several duck phobia therapies take months and even years to heal.

Cure Duck Phobia
At times, the patient is even frequently exposed to the condition of fear as an essential part of the treatment. However, such a therapeutic treatment is irrelevant and can bring about immense deterioration in the condition of fear in an individual. For an expert therapist, bird phobia can be successfully treated making use of the right therapeutic measures just within 24 hours.

Some of the common symptoms of duck phobia include:

* Shortness of breath
* Rapid breathing
* Irregular heart beat
* Nausea
* Vomiting
* Overall feeling of dread

You would come across multiple drugs meant for treating phobia of ducks widely available in the market. Unfortunately, the drugs are often accompanied by several side effects and once you stop taking them, your phobic condition may get immensely aggravated.

In reality, bird phobias cannot be cured by drugs only. At length the symptoms of the disease can be suppressed through chemical reactions for a negligible amount of time.

However, good news is that some contemporary, fast, drug free processes prescribed by NLP can completely cure your illogical fear of ducks.

Phobia of ducks is a creation of the unconscious mind. Maybe at some point of bygone days you may have come across unfortunate incidents in relation to birds, which ultimately took the shape of an emotional trauma. Phobic conditions can also be triggered by movies, television programs or traumatic experiences of life.

Relevance of NLP in treating Duck Phobia
NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming teaches you how to cure yourself from unreasonable fears and stress. From NLP’s viewpoint, fear of duck is an inert condition of your psychology, which you have created yourself.

The best way to combat this condition is to reconstruct and reprogram your mind and eliminate the illogical fear of birds. In most cases, NLP interventions are quite rapid and effective.

Energy psychology is gaining popularity as a perfect remedy of eliminating duck phobia and several other conditions of fear.

Posted by Jan Heering
Master Coach, psychological trainer and author
Founder and President of the Morpheus Institute and
www.phobia-fear-release.com

nutrient comparision duck eggs versus chicken eggs

2009-08-31T02:53:00.000-07:00

Nutrients Chicken Duck
Water (g) 75.33 70.83 LESS, which is a good thing. This means they are more concentrated, Packed with nutrients.
Energy (KCal) 149 185 MORE
Protein (g) 12.49 12.81 MORE
Fat (g) 10.02 13.77 MORE
Ash (g) 0.94 1.14 MORE
Carbo (g) 1.22 1.45 MORE
Minerals (mg) 486.58 674.36 MORE
Vitamin B6 (mg) 0.139 0.25 MORE
Amino acids (g) 12.49 12.99 MORE
Pant acid (mg) 1.255 1.862 .6mg more
Riboflavin (mg) 0.508 0.404
Thiamin (mg) 0.062 0.156 3x more
Vitamin A (IU) 635 1328 2x more
Niacin (mg) 0.073 0.20 3x more
Vit B12 (mcg) 1.00 5.40 5x more

Now you can see why I kind of refer to chicken eggs as cardboard eggs!

Many sites to see!

2009-07-31T03:44:00.000-07:00

I love the amazing sites out there and will try to feature many that I like. Please follow the links as they are informative as they are funny.

FORUMS ABOUT WATERFOWL
http://www.poultrycommunity.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=23
http://ponds.proboards.com/index.cgi#general

FAQ ON RAISING DUCKS
http://katihoza.home.comcast.net/~katihoza/faq/index.html

Aquaculture system with ducks

2009-07-31T03:15:00.000-07:00

Our friend who recently got some of our Ancona ducks has started to use them in his aquaculture fish tanks. Check out his blog at www.donaldstreetducks.blogspot.com for some video on the system. I am sure he is going to update as they get older and more worked into the system.

Why should you pay more for eggs?

2009-07-28T02:17:00.000-07:00

Why should you pay more for eggs?

Evans response-
The reasons are clear, first off the farmers need to take care of the birds. This increases costs above the standard 1.50 a dozen farm fresh eggs rule. We are not in the 1960 or 1970's and need to pay more to the farmers who spend so much time trying to feed people. If the costs continue the same and Corn and cheap feed continues to be feed to the animals the changes will be seen. The damage is being done to grow large amounts of Corn and Soy for the feed, the fish meal is not safe finding alternatives is growing local Soy for the feed, other crops like chickweed, amaranth, Quinoa, rotating the grazing pattens, all kinds off options are out there just becoming aware that it takes more than just CHEAP feed to give these domesticated birds a healthy humane happy life.
Rachel-
at 1.50/doz farmers cannot afford to cover their costs let alone get paid for their time and level of care. With these prices to compete with its no wonder small farmers convert to larger caged systems. They cannot afford preditor control on that many free-ranged chickens so they choose breeds that lay eggs even when confined, even tourtured. For 1.50 a dozen what could the chicken have been fed? Other subsidized crops like corn and soy which are intensively sprayed with chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides in their horizon spanning monocropped fields. As Joel Salatin says "chemical agriculture is like a drug trip, every year it takes more to get the same kick." and all these pollutants end up in our water.

LEARNING TO TAKE CARE OF DUCKS SITE

2009-07-28T01:48:00.000-07:00

http://poultrykeeper.com/waterfowl-ducks-geese/

Our Vet- Dr. Fricke

2009-07-23T02:45:00.000-07:00

Our Vet- Dr. Fricke

Best Vet for Ducks, Chickens and Exotic birds, also dogs and cats, specializes in natural care methods-

Dr. Fricke received his Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from Washington State University in 1994. Dr. Fricke began practice at McKenzie Animal Hospital in 1995. His areas of special interest beyond general practice are Exotic and Avian Medicine, Surgery, Acupuncture, and Alternative/Complementary Medicine. Dr. Fricke's interests outside the practice are his wife Katharine, soccer, snowboarding, wildlife rehabilitation, and home improvement projects. Dr. Fricke is the past President of the Lane County Veterinary Medical Association (LCVMA), serves as an Executive Board Member at Greenhill Humane Society and is the OR VMA delegate to the Wild West Veterinary Conference. His office website http://mckenzieanimalhospital.com/vets.htm

Accreditation-McKenzie Animal Hospital is accredited by The American Animal Hospital Association. Nationwide, less than 12% of all small animal hospitals receive this certification. In order to achieve this honor, McKenzie Animal Hospital is required to participate in a comprehensive evaluation of our facility, equipment, medical records, practice standards and health care. Evaluations are conducted every two to four years by The American Animal Hospital Association. We are currently accredited for four years - the highest level recognized by AAHA.

Duck House Construction

2009-07-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

Duck House Construction

Keeping the panels individually separted creates areas for the individual bird flocks to be separted and kept extra clean. The bottom is raised up about a foot and individually filled with coated 1/4 inch wire. We still use the deep litter method here it is modified to allow the underside to be vented to allow air to pass underneath to help with the deep litter not molding too much. Water tends to be the biggest problem I see in other buildings, keeping it of the ground allows for the structure to dry out quicker.

ABOUT THE FLOORS

Raising ducks requires building a place for them to get locked away at night so predators especially raccoons cant get them, our structure can hold 25 ducks with separated pens and about 10 nesting boxes.

The floor and roof are the most important part of a duck house.The floor must be free of any obstacles they can trip on.

VENTILATION (UNFINISHED TOP PANELING!)

Ancona Ducks eating Snails

2009-07-14T00:23:00.001-07:00

Ancona Ducks eating Snails

Cute Ancona Ducklings!

GOT DUCKS??

2009-07-14T00:12:00.000-07:00

It recently came to me that another website has a poll running with our campaign slogans as one of its options as a tshirt. All I can say is make the tshirt, even though it is still our campaign to have people get ducks over chickens. The website has three other choices to go with and they might be better off choosing one of them.