Well, the rescued duckling is now fluffy and happy and doing very well. Eating, drinking, peeping and pooping. A far cry from the stiff, cold little body I found buried in the nestbox yesterday. Who knew Muscovy ducklings were so resilient?
What Color is My Coturnix Quail Chick?
Want to know what color your little fluffball will be when they grow up? Here’s a little guide:
Wild Type or Pharaoh
White or Texas A&M
Tibetan or Dark Range
Silver
Tuxedo
Golden/Italian or Manchurian
I hope this helps satiate your burning quail coloration curiosity!
Nearly Lost One
I woke up this morning after about five hours of sleep, which if you know me, you’ll know is VERY unusual. I like my sleep. Anyway, for some reason I felt compelled to go outside and check on everyone. First thing I did of course was to open the nestbox to check on the new ducklings. First it seemed like no more had hatched, but then I noticed a dark lump buried in the woodchips. It was a fourth duckling. It was cold, still wet and had not fully absorbed his yolk… But almost. His eyes were dry and caked open with sawdust. But he was moving, ever so slightly.
I picked him up and brought him inside where I immersed him in a bowl of warm water up to his neck. After a few minutes, he started to revive. I dunked his head briefly to clean out his eyes and he sputtered a bit but then closed them up properly. I kept him in the water until it began to cool and then put him on a towel under a heat lamp. His breathing was a lot better and he was making feeble attempts to preen himself. In the meantime I went out again and removed the remaining five eggs from underneath the duck. After candling, they all turned out to be bad. Hoping the duck would now leave the nest and take care of her young, I kept an eye on her. She left the nest and the three ducklings followed her. However, once they left the coop the larger ducklings began picking on them immediately. The mother made no attempt to protect them, so I made the decision to transfer them to the brooder. The healthy ducklings began to drink and eat right away and snuggle up next to the rescued duckling who is slowly fluffing up. I guess this solves the problem of how to feed them without all the adults stealing their chick starter. I may try to reintroduce them to their mother in a day or two once they are all doing well, but who knows if such a thing is possible. If not, they’ll just get raised in the brooder.
I think I may need a nap later.
New Baby Muscovy Ducks!
Being super busy with taxes today meant I got out to feed the animals a little later than usual. As I was feeding the quail I kept hearing a little peeping sound near the older ducklings. I kept looking to see which one was peeping but couldn’t see any lips moving, ha. Was it the quail? It was a peep that was a little out of place.
Suddenly I noticed a little brown ball of fluff beside the duck pool. BABIES! I grabbed the little guy and put him in a safe spot. When I looked into the nestbox, I saw two more ducklings in with mama, so I put him in too.
I’m so excited! These are the first ducklings that have ever been born here. The colors look interesting and I wonder how they’ll turn out. They seem mostly brownish. The drake, their father, is black and their mother looks like pied lilac. I know Muscovy color genetics are fairly specific and you usually only get one or two colors each time. Generally the ducklings will look a lot like the parents although there are exceptions. You can see what I mean here: http://www.muscovyduckcentral.com/genetics.html
Now I just have to figure out how to feed them chick starter without everyone else eating it all first!
Hybrid Kit Weights – 4 Weeks
The hybrid kits are growing fast and are now a month old. The weights this week are: 490g, 590g, 483g, 567g, 529g, 531g, 515g and 454g. That’s a total increase from last week of 2130g which means they more than doubled in weight.
Copycat Costco Seafood-Stuffed Salmon
This is based on the real components used in Costco stuffed salmon, except the kind of gross Stove Top Stuffing mix has been replaced with natural ingredients. I love this dish and I know my mom loves it too! It’s actually very simple to put together and produces far better results than the store bought version. It’s easy to get the three main seafood ingredients if you have a boyfriend with a little fishing boat and you live on Vancouver Island. I’m so lucky!
Copycat Costco Stuffed Salmon
6 wild salmon filet portions (plus salt and pepper to season)
1 cup cooked white or brown rice (1/2 cup uncooked rice + 1 cup water)
1 cup fresh cooked crab meat
1 cup fresh cooked prawns, chopped roughly
1 cup Panko breadcrumbs
1 T salted butter
1/2 large yellow onion, minced
1-2 large garlic cloves, minced
4 T mayonnaise
1/2 cup grated cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 t fresh ground pepper, ground sage, ground rosemary, celery seed
1 t kosher salt, paprika, dill (1 T fresh), parsley (1 T fresh)
1 T fresh lemon juice plus lemon wedges for garnish
1 T olive oil
1/4 t cayenne (optional)
Rinse rice and cook or use leftover rice. Saute onion in butter on medium-high heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook for one more minute. Add breadcrumbs and spices and toss well, saute for one more minute. Transfer to bowl and add the rest of the ingredients except the olive oil and the salmon. Mix well.
Slice a slit lengthwise down the middle of each salmon filet and divide your portions of stuffing into balls, pressing them firmly into the centers of each steak. Heat olive oil in a skillet on medium-high, season your salmon with salt and pepper and cook for about 5-7 minutes on each side depending on thickness and desired doneness. Allow to rest off heat for 3 minutes before serving. Garnish with lemon wedges.
Serves six but uncooked extras will keep in the fridge for up to three days, so dinner for two for three days in a row, maybe?
Catch of the Day
Today after a long day of work I was surprised with a most wonderful gift, a huge Chinook salmon, freshly caught for me by my very talented boyfriend. We don’t have a scale, but he seemed to us both to be about 17 pounds. He has now been cleaned and dressed, and shares shelf space in the fridge with fresh Red Rock and Dungeness crab, spot prawns and tiger prawns, and beautiful rock cod and kelp greenling filets, all caught by the two of us in the past two days. I plan to use the salmon, crab and prawns to make a copycat Costco stuffed salmon. If it works we will be eating a lot of them, I can promise you.
Tomorrow we have a full, fun day of fishing planned and I will be collecting some sea asparagus at the marina as a side dish. The poultry may get to try some if there’s any left over. They’ve been very happy to clean up all the fish heads and guts for us in the meantime. Here’s hoping for calm seas!
Breeding Day
Today was Scorch’s inauguration as a breeding buck. He’s grown a lot since I bought him, and he’s a laid-back Californian boy. He was bred to Esther the Creme d’Argent and Samphire, my other Californian. He was excellent with the ladies and I could tell they liked him as they lifted right away. He’s big but he’s gentle. Looking forward to my first litter of hybrid Creme/Californian kits, and hopefully a nice litter of purebred Californians. It will be Samphire’s first litter, so anything or nothing could happen.
Muscovy Ducklings at Six Weeks
The ducklings have been with us for for almost two weeks now and are settling in very well. Today, much of the coop floor is being excavated by the hard-working boyfriend and we’re going to lay at least a foot of woodchips down. This should help cut down on the mud. Bonus is that all the manure-rich material that was dug out went straight into my tomato and tomatillo beds.
If all goes as planned, we’ll have more Muscovy ducklings hatching out the beginning of July. It’s going to be very ducky around here!
Hybrid Kit Weights – 3 Weeks
Although I’ve been breeding rabbits for awhile now, I’ve never done weekly weigh-ins. Since I may keep one of the hybrid does, I’m curious how they compare to other rabbits, so I’m going to try it with this litter.
Esther’s hybrid kits are a day shy of three weeks old today. The recorded weights are 240g, 289g, 227g, 240g, 212g, 300g, 253g and 268g.
You can see the variation in coat color very well now. The kits from this litter are less consistently colored as her previous ones, and I quite like the lighter, reddish ones.
Abernathy's Rabbitry 