Anyone here ever dog break ducks? Any idea how long that takes?

Thanks
Julie

Yup. I usually do it with babies. Ducks are smart and learn to stick with you, very fast. Some breeds stick with you TOO much. If you hand feed them daily they will break even faster, because they trust you. If you hand feed them while the dog "holds" them, it will only take a few days. Otherwise count on a week or so to get them well settled and trusting the dog, depending on the breed and the dog.

Runners settle into a routine quickly but need a dog to be light and precise. They are not particularly forgiving.

Medium weight, multipurpose ducks like Buffs and Swedes are very reasonable and sensible. It still takes a bit of doing to get them really "dog broke" as in, drawing TO you instead of your acting as an oppositional force. These breeds require conditioning but once prepared, have almost as much stamina as the Runners and are much more sensible and easy on the dog.

Khakis (a lightweight breed) are insane. That's all there is too it. They'll never settle, most of them can fly pretty well for short distances and will do it, and they expend so much energy running for their lives for no good reason, that they have terrible stamina. They also tend to injure themselves flying/running into stuff. People who work with them usually swear they'll never do it again unless they really, really like eggs, and then they think hard about maybe getting another breed just to work.

Cuyugas are a medium to heavy breed and are about as nice as the Buffs and Swedes to work. But heavy individuals can frustrate your dog by making the flock uneven.

Pekins are very sweet but dumb as rocks and about as heavy. You'll be tripping over them and a hotheaded dog will be tempted to injure it to try to get it moving. The one good thing is that they are very hardy and not easily injured. Good puppy ducks. Ayleyards are also heavies but you probably don't want to train on them - good specimens have such heavy keels and square stance that they don't move very quickly.

I've been very pleased and surprised with my Rouens, another heavy breed. I'd prefer a flock of Buffs, or another medium breed, but I've been working them since they were four weeks old and I've had a nice long run with them all summer. That leads me to believe that if I maintain a breeding flock, I could separate out the youngsters every year at four to six weeks, as working "volunteers." They have excellent stamina and are quite sensible and forgiving, even from a young age. They have terrific flocking instincts - again even when they were babies there was clear, sensible leadership.

It's fun to work on ducks because sometimes when it's too hot to work the sheep, it's no problem to work the ducks - the dog's covering about a tenth of the ground, the ducks need hardly move at all, and every few minutes everybody can jump in the water!

Becca, Ruffy and I recently started working some ducks (from hell) that run pretty much upright and remind me of the runners but they've got a feathered knot on top of their heads. They're very fast and so skittish that I've got to keep Ruffy about 20 to 30 feet in back of them. Any idea on what breed of duck (from hell) we're dealing with? Ruffysdad

Hmmm, sounds like a flock of Texas Border Hell Ducks to me...

Ruffy's Dad,
Crested ducks have to be the cutest poultry there is! I was at a Southern States the other day and they had some black crested ducklings (with white crests--or at least white down where the crest would grow in) and it was all I could do to keep from snagging some to take home. Then sanity overcame me and I left them there....

Oklahoma State University's Animal Sciences web site has several good pages on various breeds of livestock, including poultry. Check it out when you get a chance. Here's the poultry page: http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/poultry/ (note: some of the page frames appear to be messed up). If you want to spend time looking at sheep breeds, go here: http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/


J.

There are crested versions of several breeds, particularly the lighter breeds. It seems to be linked to the white gene from what I've seen. Runners can have this mutation, which I believe is recessive more or less, so you can breed crest to crest and get a whole flock of 'em. Other breeds that can have it that I know of for sure: Pekins, Aylesbury, calls, the cow spotted breed whose name escapes me ATM, and it pops up very rarely in Khakis. Sometimes the khakis who have it (which are usually also white), are selected to produce a calmer, showier egg laying breed. They actually lay more than regular Khakis in commercial settings or dog working situations because the way regular Khakis lose their marbles when stressed, really affects egg production.

Well, I am getting 6 4 month old Pekins tomorrow. We shall see how it goes...