Geese and Ducks Are No Fun At All!!
Posted: Thursday, February 05, 2009
by Cher King
I think back to my childhood and my step father was passionate about ducks and his goose named Mrs. Goose. Well I took care of them in our small barn during the winter. They smelled and made a mess no matter what. My mother really never cared for waterfowl and she wasn't too pleased when my step father decided to let them loose in the spring. Ok the ducks and there quiet quack quack, were ok but Mrs. Goose's honking was a bit much. Not only the honking but she would chase you, try to nip you and worst of all she ate or dug up all of my mother's flowers. Then of course you couldn't go barefoot either because the lawn was a mess. And for whatever reason I didn't remember any of this when I decided to raise waterfowl.
I called and complained to the hatchery and they didn't want to give a refund so they sent me another twenty five. I was happy about it at first but by the time they shipped them out the eight survivors were bigger then the others. And anytime you have a difference like that the new comers end up dead. Now I need twice the space and I have geese coming in another week or so. Of course the twenty five ducks all survived the trip and now I had thirty-three ducks. Too many ducks. They play with their water and they never have enough grain. Plus it seems like they have hoses attached to their butts and poop is being sprayed everywhere. My husband eventually made an outdoor pen for them and we put a swimming pool out in the pen for them to play in. I still had to sell some, which luckily we did but not all.
So we all know I have dressed out birds before, so ducks won't be that bad right? The duck book I had said it wouldn't and this person has to be an expert or else he wouldn't have had a book published. Well I will tell you, he's no expert. I rented a chicken plucker from the farmer's union and we boiled up plenty of water. Now the day we picked is going to be the windiest day. So we have killed nine of the fattest Pekin ducks. They were hanging upside down draining. Ok all we have to do now is dip them in the hot water and then turn on the machine and we are in business. And that's what we preceded to do. The rubber fingers that take off the feathers is going around and you hold onto the feet of the hot wet bird, feathers disappear. No the bird looked exactly the same, still covered in feathers. We try dipping them a few more times but we didn't want to do it too many times because it would cook the meat. After and hour they still looked exactly the same. This was getting to the point of irritating. We started plucking feathers which they came off but the spot you just pulled a handful from still has more feathers. So you have a small pile of feathers at your feet, that's when the wind picks up and blows them into your face. So we go on for two more hours, now we are all tired and pretty sick of ducks. We decided to skin a few of them, which went ok and the others we dug a hole and buried.
The next day we return the plucker to the farmer's union and tell him of the miserable mess we made of it. He said it sounds like you should have taken them to the poultry processing plant. What?? There's a place that will do it for you for a fee. Why the heck didn't he tell us before?? I will never know, probably wanted the rental sale. But that's what we do now, it takes about all of fifteen minutes for a whole flock and at $2.50 per bird it is worth the money.
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