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1:32

["The Beat"] We're

1:43

back my friends. It is Duck Week on

1:46

The Beat podcast. We have Christine Ellis, Duncan

1:48

Ducks on Instagram, and also the author of

1:50

Raising Ducks for Beginners and Beyond. We

1:53

have been on quite the journey, Christine, and now

1:55

we're getting into the structures that

1:57

help our ducks in the backyard live

1:59

amazing lives. don't

4:00

technically need food at night because they're

4:02

sleeping. Docs, on the other hand,

4:04

they do not go into a deep sleep.

4:06

They consistently wake up every few hours, get

4:08

up, walk around, eat, and drink. So

4:11

you should give them access to food and

4:13

water at night. Do

4:15

they also nap in the daytime then?

4:18

Yes, it's pretty much just a constant cycle

4:20

of, I'm awake for a few hours, I'm

4:22

asleep for a few hours. 27

4:25

minutes. Interesting. So they're

4:27

just sort of like living a different type

4:29

of life compared to chickens or even humans.

4:32

They're not that day cycle. They're

4:35

definitely party animals. Like

4:37

if I left them out at night, they would just

4:40

party on the pond all night and quack all night

4:42

long. They don't care. They

4:45

just wanna have fun. That's so funny.

4:47

Okay, so imagine we have

4:49

a shed or a duck coop. Like you

4:51

said before, you have to give them some source of water. And

4:54

in the past episode, we recommended just a

4:57

kiddie pool as far as basics go. Is

4:59

that really the best thing? Or if let's

5:01

say you wanna get a little more deluxe, like what would you

5:03

do? Yeah, so if

5:05

you wanna make life easier for yourself, I would

5:07

get a dog pool from Amazon because a lot

5:09

of them have drains. And if you

5:11

just have a kiddie pool, it's gonna get dirty very

5:14

quickly. You're gonna have to change out the water. And

5:16

you can't just like lift up a kiddie pool to

5:18

dump it. Like you're gonna need to bucket it

5:20

out or get some kind of drain thing to

5:23

do that for you. But if you get a dog pool, you just

5:25

pull the plug. Simple as that. Now,

5:27

if you really wanna get deluxe, your ducks will love

5:29

you if you give them a fancy in-ground

5:33

pool. Yeah, which

5:35

just sounds like what you're working on. Do you

5:37

know how big your in-ground is gonna

5:39

be in the new place? I

5:41

think it's about 10 by six. That's

5:44

pretty big. It's pretty big. How

5:46

deep are you going? Only about

5:49

two feet. Cause they don't like, I

5:52

just need enough space for them to be able to dive and

5:55

splash and have fun. But they don't really, they're not gonna

5:57

dive six feet down and eat dirt. They're

5:59

just not gonna. do that. Yeah, yeah.

6:01

Yeah. Yeah. I think mine

6:04

is probably like two and a half feet

6:06

deep at the at the deepest and it brings me

6:08

to the question. So if you're going

6:10

in ground on your pond, you

6:12

can't put a pond in a shed. So sounds

6:15

like you've decided that you're going to at least somewhat

6:17

free range your hens in the back or your ducklings

6:19

in the backyard yard, right? So

6:22

I actually have a pen that we're

6:24

building to attach to the shed because

6:26

the predators here are just crazy.

6:28

I have free range ducks in the past and

6:30

I just I can't do it anymore because we

6:33

have every wildlife that just wants to

6:36

eat them and is usually successful at

6:38

eating them if you have the opportunity.

6:40

However, I do let them

6:42

free range at least twice a day every morning

6:45

and every night. But I stand out

6:47

there with them and watch them so

6:49

that they're safe. They're safe. And so let's

6:51

okay, let's talk predators because the one experience

6:53

I've had true sort

6:55

of scary experience was there was a Cooper's Hawk

6:58

here in San Diego that

7:00

dive bombed lavender, which is one of

7:02

my lavender or Pinkton's

7:05

and the hawk actually got

7:07

a little chunk of her feathers. No,

7:09

no skin, no breakage of the skin thankfully,

7:12

but freaked her out for a while. She had this weird like

7:15

gap in the back of her her little

7:17

booty and there's just nothing there. I felt

7:19

bad and and that was a

7:21

pretty rare occurrence. Um but it made

7:23

me think like okay, maybe this outdoor run. I need to

7:26

do a little bit extra protection here and I

7:28

don't let them free range truly in the backyard

7:30

all that often like I mentioned like only at

7:32

the season breaks. Uh but all

7:34

the other predators like the mammals that might have

7:36

come. I've put like a predator

7:38

apron on the coop so they can't even dig

7:41

under which is what they try to do and

7:43

so I guess my question would be are

7:46

are the predators for ducks similar to the predators

7:48

for chickens and then what have you done to

7:50

to help prevent their their access? Yeah,

7:53

so I would say the predators for

7:55

chickens and ducks are absolutely all the

7:57

same. There's nothing really that could

7:59

hurt. one and not the other. What I

8:01

personally do is I also have like an apron

8:03

skirted out around my pen with quarter inch hardware

8:06

cloth. It is worth mentioning

8:08

though that a lot of hardware cloth is made

8:10

with zinc. And ducks can

8:12

get zinc poisoning if it you know, eventually it'll

8:14

start to corrode and leak into the soil and

8:16

then the ducks eat the soil and then they

8:18

could get zinc poisoning. So you

8:21

can get PVC coated hardware cloth and then you don't

8:23

have to worry about that. But I

8:25

wrapped my whole pen from top to

8:27

bottom all the sides, everything in that

8:29

quarter inch hardware cloth because I mean,

8:32

even the smallest little predators like rats

8:34

and weasels and fisher cats can

8:37

get in very small holes. So chicken,

8:40

chicken wire chicken fencing is just to keep

8:42

chickens in it's not to keep predators out.

8:45

And will will a rat actually

8:48

go for a duck? So

8:50

unfortunately, I have experienced a

8:52

rat problem before I lost

8:56

two ducklings to the

8:58

rats. And the rat

9:01

also bit a hole in my

9:03

duck sugar's neck. But

9:05

what he lammed. What

9:08

just bit a hole? Just the

9:11

straight rat tooth hole. Why

9:13

would what that's great

9:15

like wall alive. So the rats wanted to

9:17

eat the duck food, right? And then they

9:19

would eat all of it and run out

9:22

and be like, well, I guess I

9:24

have to eat the ducklings now. Yeah. So

9:26

it's so weird that a rat would try

9:29

to eat a living large creature. Yeah.

9:32

I don't know if maybe because I wouldn't be

9:34

surprised if the ducks tried to attack the rat

9:36

either. So they could

9:38

have like gotten into a scuffle. I don't really know. But

9:41

thankfully, you know, it wasn't that

9:44

bad. Obviously, a hole in your neck is not

9:46

good. But it could have been a lot worse

9:48

if it was some some like bigger mammal kind

9:50

of predator. Yeah, no kidding. I

9:52

had a rat problem. Unfortunately, it was like

9:55

in my house because I live in a

9:57

hundred year old home. That's actually not that

9:59

big. and there was all these

10:01

little holes. It was a remodeled home, but they didn't

10:03

plug up a lot of different things. And it

10:05

is crazy what a rat can fit through.

10:07

I'm talking like, I believe it's, I believe

10:10

it's a dime or a nickel size, something

10:12

like that. And I'm talking like

10:14

a big ass rat, not a tiny little guy. And

10:17

I'm like, how is that possible? So I haven't had

10:19

rats in the coop yet. I

10:21

think mostly because they can't

10:23

reach the food, the coop works feeder

10:25

has like these metal legs that are

10:27

cylindrical that they just can't get up.

10:31

So maybe I'm lucky there. But yeah, it's,

10:33

it's really wild. All the different types of

10:35

predators is it feels like, especially

10:37

for chickens, which are definitely the most prey

10:39

bird I've, I've kept almost

10:42

anything can get them. Uh,

10:44

yeah. And so, you know, I've, I've seen, um,

10:48

we have, we have a lot of crows in our

10:50

backyard and now I have one Raven, which

10:52

is a lot bigger and the crows actually don't

10:54

like the Raven, but the Raven seems to like

10:56

the backyard. So there's a lot of activity, a

10:59

lot of biology in the backyard now. And

11:01

one of my hands, Chedi, who is a

11:03

Y and dot she'll, she'll jump out of

11:06

the outdoor run every day. So in the morning, she's always

11:08

free ranging. And I'm just like, whatever you

11:10

do, you like, you know, you're going

11:12

to have to accept the consequences of your actions, Chedi. And

11:15

the Raven now and her have developed a,

11:17

like a love hate relationship where the

11:19

Raven flew down right

11:22

next to Chedi in the middle of the garden

11:24

and they squared off for like 20 seconds, beep

11:27

to beak. And the Raven like wings up,

11:29

Chedi fluffed up and they kind of just kept doing that.

11:31

And I was like, what am I watching right now? Like

11:33

I tried to pull my phone out and record. I couldn't

11:35

get it in time and Chedi won. Like

11:38

she scared the Raven away. The Raven like went back

11:40

up on the thing and like kind of coward. So

11:42

I don't know. It's very interesting dynamics,

11:45

you know, like I would have never thought,

11:47

cause the Raven for sure could have destroyed

11:49

Chedi if she wanted to, but

11:51

I don't think a Raven's trying to eat like a live

11:53

bird most of the time anyways. Yeah. I

11:55

think the Raven's definitely like their eggs

11:58

though. Yeah, probably. Yeah,

12:00

which they would they would

12:02

absolutely steal the eggs. And fortunately, the eggs

12:04

are locked, locked down. Like there's no way

12:06

a raven can get to the eggs. But

12:09

anyways, cool. Some interesting tips

12:11

here, guys, on pens, pools and

12:13

predators. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about ducklings,

12:15

which if I go down this journey, Christine, that

12:17

is the way I'm going to go. So I'm

12:19

excited to learn. Hope you guys are too. Stay

12:22

tuned. Good luck in the garden. Keep on growing.

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