Just when you thought I had forgotten about them...more show pics as promised!!
The show in Indiana was huge and I have
posted quite a few chicken pics in the last posts but now is the time for waterfowl and turkeys. So our lesson today is on Ducks, Geese and Turkeys.
Male ducks usually have a curl in their tail feathers whereas the females don't. Also most male ducks can't quack, they make a hoarse hissing sound. So when you hear ducks making a lot of noise you know it is a group of ladies!
The Cayuga ducks are really neat. They are a medium sized duck and are black but have a green sheen to them. They are really beautiful because they seem to shimmer.
This is a cute little Call duck. they are very small and very sweet BUT they are noisy. QUACK QUACK all the time.
This is a beautiful Male Mandarin Duck. They are also quite small.
Most ducks squat on the ground but not these guys. They like to perch.
They lay their eggs in a cavity of a tree and after hatching the hen calls to the ducklings to get them to jump out and head to the water.
This is one of the few breeds of duck where the male helps raise the young. After the ducklings have hatched he meets up with them in the water and scouts about to keep them safe.
Obviously due to the colouring of these birds they don't have the greatest survival rate in the wild.
They are beautiful ducks.
This is a Pomeranian goose pair.
This one wants to sleep.
A Chinese goose hissing at me to go away
A big low to the ground Toulouse goose
These geese have long wavy feathers and look very messy!
They are called Sebastopol geese.
This guy with the big floppy dewlap on his neck is called an African goose.
A small portion of the geese in this building. With all the waterfowl in this building it was very hard to hear as they quack non stop.
My nephews favourite duck breed is the Muscovy. This duck was the most beautiful dove grey colour with a little mohawk of feathers on the top of it's head. They are a crested breed that also like to perch.
This is a huge male Muscovy. These guys get really big and the males grow the red bumps all over their face
These ducks are amazing at pest control and eat hundreds of bugs. They are great on a farm to keep down the fly and mosquito populations.
They lay alot of eggs, fly well and their meat is almost fat free. Not greasy like other ducks. They also make great pets.
This is a Muscovy with a Runner duck standing behind it. I use to breed Runner ducks. They look like bowling pins.
A big turkey..gobble gobble
The things on their noses inflate as they breathe, I found it quite fascinating..yes I need to get a life! I had to look up what all the the red fleshy stuff on was called and here is what I found.
The male turkey has a red fleshy gobble hanging from its neck. It also has a red-pink growth on its head called a carbuncle and a long fleshy growth called a snood at the base of its bill.
So that it for now..next time we start into the rabbits!!!!!