A list of things I have said to poultry

 "Stop that! It's not his fault he exists and has testicles!"

"There has been too much duck crime today! No more crime until tomorrow!"

"I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE"

"TAKE IT TO THE HOUSE" (almost every day, when I want them to go back in the damn coop)

"STOP EATING MY TREES THEY ARE BABIES"

"Capes are not in fashion! Get out of the feed sacks!"

"WHERE DID YOU GET THAT"

"YOU DISGUST ME"

"That's not where eggs go!"

"STOP POOPING ON ME I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU OW YOU HAVE SHARP TALONS"

"Stop shouting and eat your food!"

"Who's blood is this?!"

"Puddle water is not delicious! I just filled the waterer!"

Many mama duck styles

So as many of you know we got livestock guardian dogs this year.  While Heimdall and Sobek are still being dumb puppies (BIRDS ARE FRIENDS NOT TOYS), they are also already so good at their jobs that I can actually let the mama Muscovies raise their ducklings and I don't loose half of them to vanishing the first week.  This is super amazing because brooder ducklings suck (they're wet and stinky!).  But also interesting because of all the different mama duck styles we turn out to have.

White belly mama wants to take her ducklings as far away from the other ducks as she can possibly get them, as soon as their little legs are strong enough for them to follow her.  This is a little bit of a problem because she wants to take them into the cow pasture next door, and cows will step on ducklings and not even notice.  Still raised them all as far as I can tell though.

The white mamas always go in on a nest together, and seem mildly confused as to why these ducklings are following them.  They will cuddle the babies if they huddle up, but seem to want to know why crying ducklings are making that noise.

This is as close as I could get to black mama duck, because she will attack you if you look at ducklings funny.  Not just her ducklings, but ANY ducklings.  She stops mothering them a lot earlier than the other hens do, but makes it up in sheer determination to make you BLEED.

One of the blue hens has a nest that should hatch soon, that will be the last ducklings of the year, so help me.  I might have too many ducks.  But mothering ability is a good thing to decide which to keep based on, so I have an excuse to keep them a little longer.

Things I never expected about ducks

The last one was fun so I'm doing it again!

1. Male ducks do not quack.  They in fact sound a lot like Donald Duck, only quieter.  Somebody on the Disney staff actually knew a thing or two about ducks.
2. Female ducks make up for the lack of quacking from their boyfriends... especially laying breeds.  High strung ducks = LOTS AND LOTS OF QUACKING.
3. Ducklings, no matter how often or how gently they are handled, seem to go through a crazy panic bird phase starting when they are about two or three weeks old.  This is about a week before a lot of mama ducks give their babies the boot in nature, apparently, so it makes sense.  It is still obnoxious.
4. When the panic bird phase ends depends on the breed.  Meat breeds settle down right around when they start laying... when they are 20 weeks old.  I'm still waiting for the laying breeds to settle down.
5. Domestic ducks (except for Muscovies, which I'll get to later, and Mallards, which I don't ever want to own) do not fly.  They also have stupid flat feet and look a lot like a wind up bath toy when they run.  They are still faster than you.
6. Muscovies fly.  I mean they really fly, like "oh hi I'm a duck and I want to roost on top of your house" level of flying.  I keep having this idea that I can leave their wings unclipped and it will be fine.  I don't know why I keep having this idea.
7. While ducks are extremely stupid, they are creatures of habit, and if you can make them do something for about three days (say, go into the coop at sundown), they will do it basically on their own ever after.  This is wonderful most of the time, but terrible if you need to get them to do something else instead (like sleep in the other coop).  Because they will do everything in their power to make everything exactly the same always forever and ever, including running you over with those stupid flat feet, which isn't as funny as it sounds like it should be.
8. There is a saying, "being nibbled to death by ducks."  I will tell you, I have been bitten by ducks (broody mommy ducks are full of rage), and it is actually quite painful.  Especially when it is done over and over at high speed and accompanied by valiant attempts to beat you to death with her wings.  Just don't mess with broody Muscovies.  It's almost always a mistake, and very rarely worth it.
9. Mother ducks are extremely protective of their babies.  The problem with this is when the hen across the way also hatched out some very nice babies, and she decides that those must be her babies, too, and OMG THAT EVIL MONSTER HEN IS STEALING MAH BABIES!!!1  When hens fight over the ducklings, the ducklings always loose.  I have ended up with more brooder ducklings this way than any other issue with the hatching process.
10. Speaking of ducks hatching eggs... sometimes, when the eggs are hatching, the mother ducks will push pipping eggs and wet ducklings out of the nest.  They can't get back in on their own, obviously, and the mother ducks either can't or won't help (although they will call to them - the mother ducks may just be stupid).  When you try to put them back you will get bitten.  A lot.  I like to just put them in my incubator and avoid that whole mess.  This is the second biggest reason I end up with brooder ducklings.
11. Do not gauge a duck hen's ability to hatch eggs by the first nest she sits.  There will be quite a lot of rotters and dead ducklings the first go around, and you may panic and think that you will never have enough ducklings to raise for the freezer.  Her second nest she will probably hatch twice as many ducklings as you thought she had eggs under there, and you will suddenly have an army of ducklings breaking into the feed corn like they own the place.

All in all, I wonder why I keep ducks about four times a year.  But then there are the times when I sit on my front porch and watch peaceful roving packs of ducklings grazing in my front yard, keeping the place free of basically all bugs in the process.  Plus roast duck for dinner and poached duck eggs?  Yeah, they'll be staying.

The 4Farthings chick raising method

So I've got some more chicks.  For some reason.

No but seriously, these are to live in the duck houses and keep the bedding turned, so it doesn't become a packed block glued together with poop.  The white/tan ones are Salmon Faverolles (they're French!), the black/white chipmunk looking ones are Silver Laced Wyandottes (they're American!), and the black/brown/gray ones with the poofy cheeks are Easter Eggers (my husband talked me into them!).  They are very cute and, for the next couple of weeks, very fragile.  Here is my method, honed over many batches of chicks and ducklings, for keeping them alive until they are feathered out and ready for the coop.  This method works equally well for every species and breed I've tried it on.

This is the last batch for this brooder.  They are not easy on it!

1. If you are getting your peeps from the feed store, they don't require any special treatment when you first get them - that was taken care of by the feed store.  However if you got them in the mail, you will want to introduce them to water SLOWLY.  Let them have the water for five minutes, then take it away for fifteen minutes.  Do this three times, then let them have it full time.  This is particularly important for ducks.  The reason for this is because birds that have been shipped often arrive a little dehydrated.  Being thirsty, they can drink too much water, too quickly, and shock their little systems.  I have never heard of chicks dieing this way, but ducklings, particularly Muscovies, can and will kill themselves this way if you give them water full time right off the bat.  Better safe than sorry!
2. They need to live inside at first.  I keep my peeps in our insulated shed, which we affectionately call the Man Shed.  It is mostly my husband's workshop, but the deal is he can do anything he wants in there as long as I can also use it for brooding poultry.  Any draft free space will do though - tiny baby birds CANNOT regulate their body temperature, and without a mama to keep them cozy, they chill and die easily.  So inside it is!
3. Within the Man Shed, they are contained by a brooder.  Mine is made out of cardboard boxes.  I opened up one side of a bunch of medium moving boxes, taped them end to end, and made a ring.  Then I laid a piece of plastic sheeting in the bottom, and put a layer of pine shavings in the bottom as bedding.  A word to bedding: I have tried old hay, all kinds of straw, dry grass clippings, old leaves, and pine shavings.  USE PINE SHAVINGS, particularly for ducklings.  They are just better because they are just more adsorbent.  Dry baby birds are healthy baby birds!
4. They have a heat lamp.  I use the red kind around the clock, no switching between a white one in the day and a red one at night because I am lazy.  I do NOT use a thermometer.  The first day, I adjust the lamp height until the baby birds are a) not huddled under the lamp and b) not getting as far from the lamp as possible.  After a batch or two in your brooder in your location you will know exactly what height this is.  After that I raise the lamp about four to six inches every four to five days.  This is significantly faster heat decrease than the books tell you to do!  But I find that the birds feather out faster and are just as healthy this way, compared to starting them at 95*F and lowering the temperature five degrees per week until you hit room temperature.  If I did it that way the dang chicks would be in the brooder for six weeks!  I don't have time or energy for that, and by then they can escape from the brooder.  No thank you!  Just keep an eye on them.  They will let you know if they are too cold by huddling under the lamp.
5. When they are about three weeks old I can usually turn off the heat lamp.  Because my brooding space is insulated, over the next week the temperature will slowly drop.  Once the temperature in the Man Shed is about the same as the temperature in my house (judged by the very scientific "feels about right to me" method), I move them to the coop WITH a heat lamp.  This is purely for insurance, because my coop is drafty.  If they do well, I turn off the lamp after about a week - sooner if the weather is good.
6. A note for integrating new birds into an existing flock - if you are not careful, the older birds will harass the new birds.  Do not just dump them in together and hope for the best!  I have a piece of fence that I can put inside my coop, making an area for the new ones with their own food and water.  This way the older birds can get to know the new additions while the younger birds can get away from the pecking.  For ducks, a day or two is plenty, but for chickens, you're better off giving them a full week.

Of course there are as many specific methods for raising baby birds as there are people raising baby birds, and if your peeps are active and growing, you are doing just fine.

However, I do have a warning for you all: HEAT LAMPS START FIRES.  You need to make absolutely certain that your heat lamp is SECURE, because if it falls into the bedding, and you do not correct it post haste, it can and will burn the building it's in to the ground.  Of course there is no reason to be afraid of heat lamps, either - but you must be CAREFUL.

Happy spring!