Everything You Need To Know About Keeping Call Ducks! A full Breed Review And Some Helpful Tips!

Hi guys! It's Emily from Cheese and Quackers Homestead. If you're not already familiar with us from our other platforms, we are a small upstate New York homestead that works primarily with keeping waterfowl. We currently have 43 ducks in our homestead, 2 flocks, and 12 different breeds. In today's video, I'm going to be telling you all about our personal experience keeping call ducks and some helpful tips you might be interested in knowing before you decide to add this fun miniature breed to your own flock. If you're not already familiar with call ducks, call ducks are a Bantam breed of duck that was officially recognized by the APA in 1874. Their notable characteristics include big eyes, a short bill, a stubby neck, and a miniature teardrop-shaped body. Call ducks were originally used as live decoys by hunters who were attracted to the breed based on their loud, unique call that was able to lure in wild ducks to a desired area. This practice has since been banned, and they are now enjoyed by duck lovers and waterfowl enthusiasts as showbirds and pets. Call ducks are the smallest domestic breed of duck, in most cases weighing only about 1-2 pounds when full grown. Call ducks, unlike many other domestic breeds, are able to fly with ease, so this is important to take into consideration before choosing to add them to your own flock. Call ducks are my personal favorite breed to keep. I have 17 of them in my Bantam flock, which resides separately on my property than my standard sized flock. In our group, we have several of the available colorings of call ducks. So now that you have some background on calls, I'm going to get into some of the pros and cons of owning them and caring for them. The points that I'm going to make here are going to be largely based on my own personal experience when keeping this breed. We'll start with some of the pros. Call ducks are a very friendly breed if well handled and socialized. This often makes them an appealing choice if you're looking for a duck that's going to behave more like a pet. I've found that call ducks small size makes them more tolerant of living in enclosed spaces than a standard sized breed and it also results in them making less mess when kept in an aviary style setting. If you're somebody that has access to limited space or is looking for a duck breed that they can keep in a coop and run style setup, then these might be a great choice for you. Another one of my favorite aspects of this breed is the wide variety of coloring options that they come in. This means that if you're just going to keep call ducks, you can still have a really decorative flock. One thing that really shocks people about this breed is that despite their small size, they are known to be just as hardy as any other domestic breed of duck. This being said, in their early days, call ducklings are much smaller than a duckling of a standard sized breed, so it will be extra important to handle call ducklings with care and ensure that they stay dry and have proper heat as hatchlings. This being my favorite breed of duck, it's definitely hard for me to admit some of the cons of keeping them, however there are some things you should be aware of before choosing to move forward with your decision to have them as pets. The biggest con is that if you're looking for a productive animal to keep in a homestead style setting, it's unlikely that call ducks would be the right breed for you. Call ducks have a lower egg production when compared to other domestic breeds, laying between 50 to 150 eggs a year with lower production in the winter. In addition, call duck eggs are much smaller in size when compared to that of a standard sized breed, which means that you're going to get overall less pounds of eggs from calls when compared to similar production rate from a standard sized duck. Call ducks really make no sense to keep as a meat duck, considering they only weigh about 1-2 pounds and they're expensive birds and you're really not going to get that much meat off these guys. When it comes to pest control, while they still will provide you some form of pest control and any domestic breed will, they're not going to compare to the prolific foragers like the runner ducks. One of the biggest cons that I hear people complain about when it comes to call ducks is the high price point. While I do expect that we're going to notice a decrease in the price of these ducks as they become more readily available to backyard hobbyists, they're currently commonly seen to be a more expensive breed. This is especially going to be true if you're buying show quality call ducks from a prestigious breeding line. Call ducks' ability to fly very well can be an unattractive trait to some backyard duck keepers. Because of their ability to fly, they are a risk for flying away, so you're going to want to make sure that they have a strong sense of home before you do any free ranging with them. Of course, there are options available like pinioning or cutting wings if you choose to do something like that. We personally don't do that here on our homestead unless it's vital to the safety and health of the bird. Call ducks' small size makes them a really easy target for a wide variety of predators. Personally, I don't free range my calls unless supervised due to them making an easy target for some common daytime predators such as hawks. This is actually one of the reasons that I do like to preserve my duck's ability to fly if they have it, so that they can get away from predators easier if something was to go after them. While they might be able to fly away from a predator if they still have their wings intact, one of the issues with this is that if they fly away and their fear response is triggered, it could cause them to hunker down and potentially stay out past dark, which can possibly put them into more danger. So it's not a sure shot way to keep them safe. With call duck's small size, there are some health issues associated with their breed. Call ducks have been traditionally bred to have really small bills, which increases their risk for respiratory struggles and sinus infections. Call duck's small size also increases their chance of a reproductive complication called egg binding. Additionally, in some cases, show quality calls with really short necks have issues reaching their preen gland on the base of their tail, resulting in a condition called wet feather. While these health complications can happen in any call, they are mostly seen in the show quality call ducks. Seeking to purchase a pet quality call will reduce the risk of most of these complications happening as pet quality call ducks are traditionally bred more in line with the goal of health and longevity. The call ducks in our flock are from Metzer Farms, which is a waterfowl specialized hatchery that maintains a focus of breeding a healthy bird rather than a show quality bird. Call ducks are a very loud and chatty breed. They're definitely the loudest we have here on our homestead. So if noise is a concern for you, you might want to look into an alternative. And the last con that I'm going to talk about in this video is when it comes to mixing call ducks in with standard size ducks, you're going to have to be extra careful, especially if you have standard size drakes, because a large size drake breeding with a miniature call hen can lead to injury in the female. Personally, we choose to fully keep our call ducks separate from our standard size flock for this reason. I've already touched on this, but as far as my full breed review on these guys, these are my favorite breed to keep. I think they are so fun and they're especially enjoyable if you're somebody that's just looking for a pet duck. I hope this video helped you learn more about this breed and come to a conclusion on whether or not they'll be a good fit for your own backyard flock. Let us know if there's any other breeds you would like us to cover and subscribe for more duck related videos and homesteading content. Thank you guys so much for hanging out.