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Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
Page 1 of 12
WATERFOWL Bantams, Heavy and Light Breeds M Holmes, Wangarratta, VIC Geese, Turkeys, Trios, Pairs and Eggs
The Official Newsletter of South East Queensland Waterfowl Association, Inc
The Legal Eagles tell me this…“Let’s Get Quacking” is the Newsletter for South East Queensland Waterfowl
Association, Inc. Any correspondence, letters of comment from subscribers (either being members of non-members of this Association) to this publication do not necessarily reflect the opinions or attitudes of this Association. Further and in addition, the material contained in this Newsletter is of the nature of general comment only and neither purports nor is intended to be held as reflecting the opinion, attitudes and or policies of the Association or its’ members. No subscriber or other member should act on the basis of any matter contained in this publication without considering, and if necessary, taking appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances. Neither the Editor, Association nor members of the Association are to be held liable for any loss or damage, suits, actions or demands arising out of this publication. The Editor and the authors, expressly disclaim all and any liability to any person, in respect of anything and of the consequences of anything done or omitted to be done by any such person in reliance, whether whole or partial, upon the whole or part of the contents of this publication.
Let’s Get Quacking!
In this Issue:-
A Message from our New President Ducks in the Kitchen Incubator Eggsperience One Duck Revolution Notice of Meeting
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
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A Friendly Reminder
Yearly Membership is now due.
SEQWA year runs from 1st January to 31st December
$30.00 for Individuals $35 for Family
Benefits of Joining
You get to talk with like minded people
A young Bird Show to show off your babies
An Annual Show
Share ideas
You receive SEQWA Newsletter at least three times a year
You get to advertise, free of charge, in the Newsletter and on the website Editorial
The New Year is always a time of reflection on the successes and challenges of the past year—and on our hopes for the ensuing months...and I feel 2012 is shaping up to be a good year for SEQWA and its’ members. Being the first Newsletter of the year, it’s a little shy on info. So I have diversified a little to include an article on sustainability with the help of ducks. I have added the article at the end of this Newsletter. In previous eras ducks were an important part of most established farms. They might not be the first animal brought to the farm but they were certainly on the guest list.
My ducks provide me with not only ample eggs to share with friends and neighbours, but plenty of manure and bedding to recycle in the garden or veggie patch. They are my insect pest controllers , my kitchen scrap recyclers a constant source of amusement , my daily exerc ise, and my tension relievers!
For me there is no greater joy than seeing the food I grew sitting on plates waiting to be eaten by family and friends. It is truly astonishing how much food you can grow in a relatively small space.
I am thinking that there may be more articles on sustainability that goes hand in hand with our ducks hobby.
Glenys
Aka Quackpots
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
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In my first communication as President of the SEQWA in 2012 I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and the best of luck for all your endeavours in the coming year. At this time of year we are all normally recovering from the silly season, maybe still enjoying some holiday time with the family, and hopefully still keenly adhering to our new year’s resolutions (we will give up on them a little later). The keen fanciers among us are also normally attentively watching our young birds grow, hoping that they will fulfil the potential that will make the breeding season’s hard work worthwhile. It seems every year I get to this stage of the breeding season when the ducklings are getting bigger, eating a phenomenal amount of food and turning it into and even more phenomenal amount of something else that I wish I hadn’t been so keen to hatch so many ducklings earlier in the season. I say to myself that I am never going to breed this many ducklings again. I have been saying that for about 20 years now. This is my office bearing position in the SEQWA, which is still a somewhat new association with a membership who are mostly relatively new to the fancy. This is not, however, my first office bearing position within the poultry fancy, having held the positions of committee member, chief steward, secretary, treasurer and newsletter editor on numerous occasions for various clubs in the past. I hope to use this experience, along with an enthusiasm for everything waterfowl to help the Association grow, as individuals and as a collective. I would like to thank those who voted to give me this opportunity. I would also like to thank the outgoing President, Tony Stallwood for his service to the Association as well as Charlie, Gloria and Glenys who continue to hold their posts of Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer respectively. Following on from the general meeting held after the annual general meeting in November, we already have a few items of business for discussion in early 2012. These items include:
1. Consideration of the Association’s
position on rules relating to junior
exhibitors;
Consideration of the Association’s position
on rules relating to ownership of exhibits and
what constitutes ownership;
2. Organisation of a ‘lawn show’ or learning
day in 2012;
3. Number and regularity of meetings in 2012;
and
4. Biosecurity issues.
These matters are to be discussed at a general meeting on Saturday 24th of March. It would be appreciated if you could all put some thought to these topics before then and bring your ideas to the discussion. If you are unable to attend the meeting, but would like to contribute your thoughts, please do not hesitate to contact one of the office bearers before then as we would welcome your involvement. To get you thinking, I have put to together some of my thoughts on these issues. You don’t necessarily have to agree with me, by the way. If you don’t, all the more reason to come along to the meeting to present your ideas.
Item 1 This is really about making sure that the birds entered in the junior classes actually belong to kids and are not just some birds grand dad put in the class in his grand child’s name just to have another class to win. It is not fair on genuine junior exhibitors to have to compete against experienced adult exhibitors. That is the whole point of the junior class. I can see that there is some merit to the side of the argument that suggests that entering some of your birds on behalf of a child may be a way to encourage them to take an interest in the fancy. However I would suggest that if you want to do this, you could always do it in the open classes as this would not be disadvantaging anyone. You do have to ask, though, whether it is right to enter your birds in someone else’s name, which brings me to my next point.
Item 2 When we see a bird entered in a show most people expect that the owner of the bird bred it, raised it, cared for it, prepared it for the show, brought it to the show and if they won something with it then they deserved it. This is the normal case for most exhibitors. Show schedules typically state in the conditions of entry that all entries must be the bona fide property of the exhibitor.
Message from the President
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
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Recently we have heard an example of birds owned by one person being housed, fed and taken to exhibitions by another person on behalf of the owner, with the owner living a long distance away and effectively not having anything to do with the birds. Personally, I do not see anything wrong with this as I don’t see how it is unfairly
disadvantaging anyone else. I would have to question though how there can be much satisfaction in this for the owner of the birds. As an association we need to decide if are happy to accept these kinds of entries at our shows.
Item 3 At a previous club that I was involved in, we ran annual learning day events referred to as ‘Lawn Shows’. The reason behind the name is that we often held these at members’ residences on the lawn with some portable show cages. The major objective of these shows was learn more about the four selected breeds featured on the day, and included a novice judges competition. A senior judge would first talk through the standard for each breed, using the exhibits present as examples to demonstrate both good and bad points. Following this, the novice judges would judge the class, recording their decisions on an official score card. The official placings in each class would then be decided by the senior judge, with the novice judge who came closest to the official placings winning a prize. With the focus of the day on demonstrating and discussing the good and bad points of the breed, entries were limited to 2 per class per exhibitor. Usually exhibitors endeavoured to bring along a selection of both good and bad birds for discussion. Interest was expressed at our most recent meeting in SEQWA undertaking similar events. In order to do this we will need to find a suitable venue with an adequate number of show cages. Some ideas of how we might arrange this are:
Holding the lawn show at the residence of
one of the members, provided they have
at least 8 show cages or if we can source
portable show cages to be brought along
on the day.
Holding the event in conjunction with
another show, so we don’t have to pay to
hire a pavilion.
Holding the event as a stand-alone show
in a poultry pavilion at a showgrounds,
meaning we would have to pay to hire the
facilities.
Holding the event in a public park or at
some markets, provided we can get some
portable cages (and maybe Council
permission?)
Holding the event in conjunction with a
private treaty sale or auction at a
showground.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these options. It would really be preferable to not have to hire a pavilion to stage the show. We found in the past that if you advertise these events, they do tend to get some interest from the backyard fanciers out there. This is great for bringing new members to the club, but does mean that these events will not necessarily be attended exclusively by people we know and trust and should be kept in mind by those considering offering their residence as a venue. In this day and age we also have to consider the biosecurity implications. Does anyone have any other ideas? Does anyone have access to portable show pens?
Item 4 I get the impression that the membership of the SEQWA would like the Association to be a little more active. A good start would be to hold some additional meetings each year. I think at least one before show season and one at the latter end of the show season would be good. Maybe this can increase if we want to get some additional events going like the Lawn Shows.
Item 5 It seems as though the Government is becoming more active on the issue of biosecurity in poultry, particularly backyard fanciers. We should put some thought into how proactive (or not) we want to be as an association.
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
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Did you Know!
You can keep duck eggs for up to 12 months in the freezer! However, because frozen eggs of any type can harbour bacteria that can cause acute intestinal infections, it is safest to store them no more than six months and restrict their use for baked or long cooked foods.
Freeze them while they are fresh and select the cleanest eggs.
Make sure that there are no signs of cracked shells.
Blend the whites and yolks with a fork being careful not to beat in air bubbles.
To prevent the yolks from becoming excessively thick during storage, add a good shake of salt and a pinch of cornstarch for each egg that you are freezing. This will help to keep the eggs' consistency more or less unaffected by freezing.
The last step is to pour the batter into thoroughly clean ice cube trays or freezer containers, leaving 1/2 inch at the tops to allow for expansion. If ice trays are used, remove the egg cubes soon after they are frozen solid, seal them in a clean container and place immediately back in the freezer.
Once frozen eggs are thawed, they should be used within twenty-four hours. Do not re - freeze thawed eggs.
Office Bearers for 2012 President Jimmy Innes [email protected] Vice President Charlie Green Secretary Gloria Evans [email protected] Treasurer Glenys Passier [email protected] Newsletter & Website Editor Glenys Passier [email protected]
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
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Mini Tuna, Corn and Sweet Potato Frittatas
Yes, it’s a horrible pun, but I am a father now and with that comes a duty to make such horrible ‘dad jokes’. I recently went through the exercise of purchasing a new incubator. Buying a ‘serious’ incubator with relatively large capacity and the latest in temperature and humidity control technology is expensive, so I was quite thorough in my research and selection of the incubator which best suited my needs. Now that I have completed a breeding season with my newly purchased incubator, I thought it would be helpful to share my ‘eggsperience’. Until now, I have incubated all of my eggs (except muscovys) in a Multiquip E1 – 142 egg capacity (including the hatching tray), wafer capsule thermostat, humidity controlled by a container of water, heated by a big 200W light bulb, ventilation forced by a big internal fan and eggs turned by a somewhat clunky retrofitted external lever-turning mechanisim. We bought it second hand, so I don’t know how old it is, but it is at least 20 years old. I originally operated the incubator based on the advice given in the literature available at the time I started using it ie temperature at 37.5 degrees celcius, fill the tray with water to keep the humidity high during incubation and even higher during hatching, turn the eggs a few times a day but avoid opening up the incubator as much as possible so that the conditions don’t vary managed to hatch ducklings using this method, but found the hatch rate to be quite low. I also noticed that the ducklings that hatched in the incubator always had much more moisture in the egg than those hatched under a duck, and the membrane around the duckling was a different texture. I was pretty sure that the problem was related to incorrect humidity in the incubator, but I didn’t really have a good way of measuring humidity as all I had was a wet bulb thermometer which I found to be pretty useless. To try to solve this problem, I experimented with the operation of the incubator to see what improved the hatch rate. In doing this, I tried to mimic the conditions that the eggs would experience under the mother duck. I came up with a strategy of completely removing the water tray from the incubator, and just spraying the eggs with water once or twice a day depending on how humid the weather was. In addition to this, I also cooled the eggs once a day for about an hour. This was to mimic the duck getting off the nest and coming back wet after having a splash. This method seemed to improve hatchability most of the time, but still wasn’t always reliable and was not what I would call ‘good hatchability’. The E1 served me fairly well over the years, baring the odd disastrous failure of the thermostat and the nagging feeling that there must be a way to improve on my hatch results, even though no one I knew was doing any better with ducks. When the automatic turning mechanism died in late 2010, I decided it was time to invest in a new incubator. Surely there must be some technological advancements which could help me out with my humidity problem as well as providing a more reliable method of temperature control (one that will never fail and cook all my eggs as seems to have happened to everyone at least once).
Incubator Eggsperience by Jim Innes
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
Page 7 of 12
Without much knowledge of what range of incubators were on the market, I commenced searching for information in poultry magazines and internet websites. As it turns out, there is quite a range available covering everything from simple, single egg incubators for school children to inexpensive foam box type incubators, cabinet type incubators for larger hobby breeders and huge commercial incubators. They also vary in construction material, heat element type, thermostat type, humidity control (or lack of control), automatic turning capability, digital controls, alarms, even the ability to SMS your mobile phone if it detects something wrong. For the number of eggs I set, I know I wanted something in the 100 to 200 egg capacity range. I was sick of the out-dated wafer style thermostat (and the disasters that come with them), so wanted to go for digital control. Automatic turning was essential as I am not home enough to turn them manually with sufficient frequency. These criteria narrowed things down considerably, but the one thing I was not sure about was humidity control. The three systems on offer were basically: 1. Put more or less water into a container and try to match the humidity you want measured with a wet bulb thermometer (like my E1); 2. Put more or less water into a container and try to match the humidity you want measured with digital hygrometer; or 3. Fully digital control which uses a small pump to feed precise amounts of water from an external reservoir into the incubator to maintain a set humidity.
Obviously the third method sounds the best, but was much more expensive. I wasn’t really sure whether it was worth spending so much money to precisely control something which in the past I had found to be poorly understood by the available literature, for ducks at least. I decided it was necessary to do some research into the role that humidity plays in the incubation process, and set about searching the internet. To my surprise, there was actually quite a bit of good information specific to ducks readily available. It turns out that the role humidity plays in the incubation of eggs is to limit the loss of moisture from the egg through the pores in the shell. It is important to lose some moisture through incubation, as the moisture is replaced by air being drawn into the egg. This air fills the air pocket at the top of the egg, and is essential for the duckling to breath when it first breaks through the inner membrane when it starts the hatching process. The loss of moisture also causes a reduction in weight of the egg. Ideally, a duck egg should lose somewhere around 13-15 % of its weight through loss of moisture during incubation to give it the right size air pocket. If the humidity is too high, not enough moisture will be lost from the egg and the air pocket will be too small to provide enough oxygen to the duckling when it tries to hatch. It can also result in too much moisture around the duckling at the time of hatching, which can lead to complications including drowning. If the humidity is too low, the egg will lose too much moisture and the air pocket will be too big, limiting the room available to the duckling and possibly even dehydrating the duckling. So what level of humidity is ideal to achieve the required moisture and weight loss for duck eggs? Most sources say something in the 35 to 45 % humidity range.
Incubator Eggsperience Continued - by Jim Innes
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
Page 8 of 12
However, it seems that the ideal varies depending on the porosity of the egg shell. Shell porosity obviously can vary from egg to egg, but I suspect it would typically be fairly similar from a group of ducks which have been raised, fed and housed in similar conditions. Some experimentation is required to see what level of humidity is required to achieve the ideal weight loss in your particular eggs. To do this, it is necessary to weigh the eggs through the incubation to check how they are tracking against the ideal. If they are losing weight too fast, the humidity needs to be raised, if they are losing weight too slowly, the humidity needs to be lowered. My findings on the importance of humidity during incubation of eggs was enough to convince me that if I was serious about improving my hatch rates, I really needed a way to both measure and control humidity precisely. To do this, I needed to spend the extra money to buy an incubator with full digital humidity control. My new incubator arrived just in time for the 2011 breeding season. I also bought myself a set of electronic scales so that I could weigh the eggs throughout the incubation. The eggs were rolling in so I began setting them in weekly batches as is my normal practice. I initially set the humidity in the incubator to 45 % as is recommended in the instruction manual that came with the incubator. As the incubation progressed, by weighing the eggs I could see that they were not losing weight fast enough, indicating that this humidity setting was too high. Gradually over the next few weeks I progressively lowered the humidity to 30%, but found that the atmospheric humidity would not allow it to go any lower. As the humidity lowered, I could see that the weight loss in the eggs increased and was generally tracking at the ideal rate when humidity was somewhere in the 30 to 35 % range. I could also see that the eggs that had the humidity set in this range for the whole incubation period were hatching more consistently than those which were incubated during the period in which I was gradually lowering the humidity from a higher setting (ie the ones that lost about 15 % of their weight did hatch more consistently). In this humidity range, I was generally hatching all but one or two of the fertile eggs set in each batch. Hatching ducklings also appeared much more like those hatched under a duck, without the excess mucus and different membrane texture that I used to see in ducklings hatched in my old incubator. As the season progressed into late spring, the weather itself became more humid. I found that this pushed the humidity in the incubator above my controlled setting of 35 %. Often it was not much over 35 %, but it did mean that for the last couple of months of the breeding season, the humidity pump I had paid all this extra money for was never even called on to operate. To counteract this higher humidity, I tried spraying the eggs with water twice a day. I know this sounds counterproductive, but I had read that this actually increases the rate of weight loss in eggs. I suspect this is something to do with making the shell or membrane more porous, and allowing more moisture to escape after the water droplets themselves have evaporated. When I tried it, it turned out this did in fact increase the weight loss slightly and allowed me to maintain good hatch results at the higher rate of humidity enforced on me by the weather. At the end of this experiment, I realised that all this egg weighing and humidity watching had lead me back to operating my new incubator in almost exactly the same way as my trial and error method had lead me to operate my old incubator ie don’t put extra water in the incubator, just spray the eggs a couple of times a day. The only difference was that I could now accurately measure what was happening and adjust slightly if things weren’t going well. In conclusion, humidity is definitely a major influence in the successful incubation of duck eggs. You can gauge whether the humidity is correct by weighing the eggs through the incubation and comparing it to the ideal weight loss of around 15 %. Spraying eggs with water once or twice a day does increase the rate of weight loss. At the very least you need to be able to accurately measure the humidity in the incubator. I am still not convinced of whether digital humidity control is necessary in our humid Queensland springtime, as these systems can only increase humidity in the incubator, not decrease it!
Incubator Eggsperience Continued - by Jim Innes
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
Page 9 of 12
An article on the virtues of keeping ducks, on a grand scale.
Mr. Takao Furuno’s modest business card reveals that he is a farmer in a world where “one duck
creates boundless treasure”.
He farms rice very successfully in Japan and is a private aid volunteer, working in Vietnam when I met him.
He had a message for all rice farmers, perhaps all wet paddy farmers, and gave me his book (all in Japanese)
on the duck-rice paddy design he has perfected. Luckily I also have a condensed translation.
His ducks, by the way, are a cross between the mallard
and a wild duck (Anas superciliosa) that we call the Black
Duck. This cross is a small duck, lean and active, that he
has named Aigamo. It is fertile and breeds more of the
same.
This Aigamo is released into the young rice paddy as soon
as it is weaned at seven days and left there in a shelter
until it is eight weeks old and the rice begins to flower.
Like all ducks, it loves rice, so cannot be trusted with
maturing rice seed. When the ducklings are first released, the rice has been transplanted for ten days, so that
Mr Furuno has set the duck eggs at about the same time that the plants seed in his rice nursery bed. The
ducks do not eat rice leaves.
Around his rice paddy, he has erected a low duck fence of netting, say ½ a metre (two feet) high, and above
this he runs an electric fence to keep out foxes, dogs, and feral cats. Inside this fence is the duck shelter,
opening onto the field. Mr Furuno stands his inner fences in the edge of the water. It is only on the boundary
of the paddy fields that one needs the electric fence; any inner fences can be very simple mesh, at most a
metre high. It is helpful to provide clean straw for the ducks to stand on, and inside their shelter.
The ducks are fed light rations of bran, and crushed rice daily, enabling the farmer to judge their need for
food as they grow.
Pacific Black Duck
The “One Duck Revolution”
By Bill Mollison – Permaculture Master
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
Page 10 of 12
In Vietnam there is a duck called
the “Cherry Valley” breed, very
like the Aigamo used by Mr
Furuno. No biocides or fertiliser
are used by Mr Furuno apart
from that produced by his ducks
which are stocked at the rate of
15 – 30 per ten acres (an are is
100m2 or 1/1000 of a hectare).
Rice is transplanted mid-June in
Japan, (mid-December in
Australia), thus duck eggs need
to be in the incubator in the first
week of May (November). Ducks
hatch in 31 days and need to be
a week old before release.
If ducks are used, rice grows taller, tillers very well (hence is more dense), the stems are more robust and the
root mass is greater. Above all, work in weeding is eliminated as are chemical inputs. Mr Furuno puts this
more abundant growth down to the puddling (muddy water effect) caused by the ducks. When the ducks are
no longer needed, they are used as table birds, and add considerably to the family income or protein intake.
As ducks are active at night, the labour of penning them away from the fields is counter-productive.
Incubators for eggs, ‘brooder lights’ and duck feeder troughs (or sheets of roof iron) are all standard
equipment. Taro should benefit as much as rice for the same reasons. Ducks, to the rice farmer, seem to be
about the equivalent of sheep dogs to a farmer. Neither needs wages or holidays.
The duck (Aigamo) eliminates most weeds, removes all harmful insects, and all the water life it can catch.
The duck fertilises the rice.
The duck cultivates the rice producing a rich mulch around the rice plants.
The paddy provides weeds, insects, pests, snails, frogs and shelter for the duck.
The rice crop provides open range for the duck.
The rice provides bran and cracked grains for the duck.
The result of this beneficial marriage of duck and rice is that fertiliser and pesticides, molluscicides and
tractors are eliminated as costs, and more rice is obtained. (Ducks in Vietnam are also widely used to glean
fallen rice after the harvest.)
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
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Brookfield Show 2012
Meeting 24
th March, 2012
At Michelle and Gary’s home at Ningi Be there for a 1.00 pm start
Afternoon Tea will be catered for by SEQWA
See Jimmy’s message on Page 3 and 4 for more
detail
Items of business for discussion
These items include but not exclusive to:
1. Consideration of the Association’s position on rules
relating to junior exhibitors;
2. Consideration of the Association’s position on rules
relating to ownership of exhibits and what constitutes
ownership;
3. Organisation of a ‘lawn show’ or learning day in 2012;
4. Number and regularity of meetings in 2012; and
5. Biosecurity issues.
Contact Glenys to RSVP or for further information
Summer Edition - 2012 Issue 15, Volume 2
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www.seqwa.net Don’t forget…SEQWA members get to advertise free on our Website (or in the Newsletter). Just send details and photos if possible. Not limited to just advertising birds….Feeders, Incubators etc also acceptable. Any suggestions for the website or Newsletter? Send to: Glenys Passier 74 Hayes Avenue Camira Q 4300 Or email: [email protected]
Date Claimer! Brookfield Show Young Bird Show
All breeds catered for
20th
May, 2012
