90th egg

[altivo]

Yes, the duck laid her 90th egg this morning. In 90 days. She did skip one day, but another time she left us two eggs in a single day. One egg was lost because it was laid with almost no shell, and one got frozen because she laid it outside in the yard when there was snow on the ground and the temperature was in the teens. All things considered, though, that's a pretty darn good record. Most have been left right in the nest box where they stay clean and are easy to find.

Gary got the fittings needed to set up the compressor for me, right at Ace Hardware. Hope to get a chance to try it out over this weekend. Guild newsletter has to come first, though.

The last (I think) N scale purchase for a while arrived today. It's a 50 ft. gondola with droppable ends. This type of car was used to transport automobile frames into the River Rouge plant when I was a kid. I remember seeing long trains of them, maybe 70 or 80 frames to a car standing on end and slanting slightly against each other. DT&I had custom braces built at the ends of the cars to support these. The car is already painted with DT&I number and logos. I just have to figure out a way to make the stack of frames and the end braces. Haven't found a photo of the real thing yet, but did find an article explaining how another modeler did it.

First paycheck of the new year today, and as I expected, it's smaller yet again. Health insurance went up once more. I think state taxes have increased as well, And when the Republican congress inevitably refuses to continue the tax break, federal taxes will go back up as well, making it shrink even farther. "There's no inflation" my ass. Bernanke should try living on an ordinary person's shrinking take home. Shrinking pay, and shrinking food packages, both constitute inflation just as much as actual price increases do. And if the price of gasoline continues to increase at the present rate, the economy is going to start sliding downward once again. The oil companies export refined gasoline and other oil products, which helps to keep prices higher here at home of course.

I will probably commit to FCN in the next few days. That will be the first con I've attended since 2008 if I do it.

Comments

[deffox]

So, do you eat the duck eggs?

We didn't bother going to any cons last year.

We haven't made any decisions about this year, but the closest American ones of FCN and Anthrocon are out.

[altivo]

Yup, the duck eggs are just like chicken eggs. We use them in baking and to make omelets. I did find that they don't make good hard-boiled eggs though, unless you want slippery tennis balls. For some reason they become incredibly tough that way.

I've sort of soured on the cons. They've gotten too large, too loud, and too confused. Even FCN is growing too fast for my tastes, but since local friends are going and we're all interested in railroads... Durand is only about an hour from Novi, and we can do both in one trip.

[hrrunka]

too large, too loud, and too confused

I like smaller conventions with a fairly specific focus, and the conventions I've enjoyed least have mostly been large ones with no particularly appealing special-interest tracks.

[altivo]

Yep. When I started attending MFF back in 2004 it was small enough to be cozy and had lots of specialized interest tracks. The last year I went (2008) it was more than three times as many people and seemed to have a lot less of the stuff that interested me. It had moved from sharing and education into mass entertainment. That and the sheer crowds (the kind that break the elevators every year so you have to wait in line for ten minutes or more to get to your room) turned me away. I've resisted since then.

[hrrunka]

That does sound thoroughly unappealing.

[avon_deer]

I'm confused...I thought Republicans were a low tax party? Why are they going to vote against the cut?

[altivo]

Like all politicians, Republicans are liars. They claim to want smaller government and lower taxes, but that isn't really what they stand for. They actually represent the interests of the corporations and the wealthy class. They oppose taxes that make the wealthy pay a share of the overall expenses. They oppose government supported programs such as health care, or unemplloyment compensation, or old age assistance and pensions. They pretend to oppose government spending but that isn't really true. Spending that increases corporate profits at the expense of the general population is fine with them. Bloated military spending, for example, is OK because most of it is paid out to corporations that sell overpriced goods and services to the military.

The Democratic administration passed a small temporary tax reduction for middle class wage earners and that was set to expire at the end of 2011. There was a huge fight over it in congress because the GOP now controls one house. They did not want to extend that tax cut "because of the budget deficit" yet they oppose any effort to make the wealthiest Americans pay a more proportionate share of government costs. This shows who they really are, of course. They are totally owned by the corporate interests and millionaires, and have only those interests in mind. All the talk about "smaller government" is a lie. They don't want smaller government, they want laissez faire capitalism. Increased government control of the general population and restriction of personal privacy and freedom is fine with them. Telling bankers that they cannot steal from small depositors or forcing corporations to treat employees fairly, however, is against their so-called principles.

In the end, the temporary tax cut (which was actually smaller than the increase in health insurance costs for most of us, so our take home pay shrank anyway) was extended for just another two months. I don't expect them to renew it again. They feel pretty confident of their control over voters because they have control of the media and can spread all the lies and distortions they choose now. They have proved repeatedly that they own the courts and can get decisions to support their dishonesty and criminal actions against the public. And now they have a law (unconstitutional but it will take years to get the courts to act against it) that allows them to hold any dissenter in prison indefinitely without pressing any legal charges or showing any cause whatsoever. If they say you are a "threat" to the status quo (i.e., might be a "terrorist") they can do whatever they want to you, without trial, without representation, without any human rights whatsoever. This passed congress and Obama signed it into law because he didn't have the guts to say no. All he did was say he wouldn't allow it to be used. That's meaningless. The next administration will be able to do whatever it wants with that power.

Ever since the Bush administration started in with the "Patriot Act," Americans have been gradually deprived of all their human rights. They just are so hypnotized by reality television and lying Fox News that they don't realize it yet. Most non-wealthy people who vote for the GOP do it because they think they are voting for social conservatism: no gay marriage, no abortion, no tolerance of different cultural views, no immigration from non-English speaking nations. They don't see the underlying corporate control and money talks attitudes.

[avon_deer]

We knew all that already. I was just confused as to why the Republican work class base still support themselves into supporting them. I can only guess it has to do with the media manipulation in your last paragraph. Seeing as many media outlets (over here The Times newspaper is a prime example of this) make so little money, one does have to question the real reasons why wealthy people should seek to buy them. Clearly this is the reason.

[altivo]

Yes of course. And members of the working class appear to support the GOP because they have been trained for generations to hate everyone who isn't just like them. So by playing on their xenophobia, homophobia, and racism, the GOP can get them to vote republican even though it's equivalent to chickens supporting a fox as their leader.

The GOP controlled media tells these people that the "other guys" are socialists and communists. Never mind that they don't even understand what socialism actually is. They've been carefully trained to respond automatically with derision and catcalls when they just hear the word. Often these gullible voters are in fact union members. Yet they gleefully vote against their own interests because, in their minds, it is more important to keep from treating gays or Mexicans as human beings than it is to keep some unscrupulous capitalist from robbing them blind.

[schnee]

90 eggs in 90 days is pretty good indeed. If she keeps that up, soon she'll have laid more than her own weight in eggs. (Assuming she hasn't already; I don't know what a duck egg weighs, or a duck for that matter. But my gut feeling is that she's not quite there yet, even though she's getting closer.)

[altivo]

She has laid many times her own weight in eggs. A live duck weighs only about a kilogram, often less. A dozen fresh eggs weighs something like 400-500 grams.

[schnee]

Oh, interesting! I would've thought that ducks are heavier than that — 2 or 3 kg, at least — and that the eggs are lighter.

You really have a trooper of a duck there. *smiles*

[altivo]

Yes, she's from one of the top egg-laying breeds but this is still exceptional performance.

You cook from European style recipes so I imagine you have a scale in your kitchen. Weigh an egg and multiply it out. Eggs are mostly water, after all, and a liter of water weighs nearly a kilo.

Ducks and chickens look much larger than they actually are because feathers are bulky but light in weight, of course. And egg laying breeds tend to weigh less than the meat producing breeds because their metabolism is skewed to produce eggs rather than muscle and fat. Ironically, neither type flies very well. The meat birds are too heavy to fly with their undersized wings, while the egg layers lack the muscle and endurance to fly more than a few yards usually. That's why domestic fowl are such a popular prey with foxes and other smallish predators. Tasty, fat, and unable to escape.

[schnee]

You cook from European style recipes so I imagine you have a scale in your kitchen. Weigh an egg and multiply it out. Eggs are mostly water, after all, and a liter of water weighs nearly a kilo.

I don't have duck eggs, though. *s* (I do know what chicken eggs weigh, at least.)

I never thought about different duck breeds, either, but it's all quite interesting. Are there different breeds of chickens, too, geared towards certain objectives (e.g. meat or eggs)? It may be a stupid question for you, but keep in mind I'm an ignorant city boy who doesn't really know a lot about most of the things you'd consider basic knowledge.

[altivo]

The eggs from this duck (who is a Khaki Campbell) are the same size and weight as what is called a "large" chicken egg here in the US. They have white shells and cannot easily be distinguished from a chicken egg.

And yes, there are many breeds of domesticated chicken. Far more than there are of ducks or geese, in fact. There are chickens that lay blue or green shelled eggs, for instance (the Araucana breed) and others (the Cornish) that were selected for heavy meat production. Interestingly enough, the meat producers often lay too few eggs to be practical for actual commercial use, so a common practice is to use Cornish roosters with high egg count hens (such as the White Leghorn) to produce offspring that gain weight rapidly for the meat marketplace.

[schnee]

OK, thanks for the explanation. And I wouldn't have thought duck eggs are the same size as chicken eggs — you really do learn something new every day.

(It also appears that a Large egg in the USA is about the same as a Medium egg here. Interesting, I would've expected it to be the other way around; usually, it seems to be the US-Americans that are the size queens. ^.~)

[altivo]

LOL! The names for egg sizes were set by a marketing organization here. Americans are size queens, but they are also gullible and will believe whatever they are told. Calling a "medium" sized egg "large" means you can call the actual large egg a "jumbo" and charge extra for it. ;p

I'm afraid that in the US today most people haven't the foggiest notion where eggs come from. If they knew the truth, they'd never eat one again.

[schnee]

Oh yeah — I looked up the US-American sizes on Wikipedia and was rather amused that the list also included "jumbo" and "peewee". ^^

Most eggs that are sold here are Medium or Large (the European sizes), but the price is the same, at least in supermarkets. Extra Large does exist as an egg size, but you won't usually find it; I've been told that this is because those eggs are so large that it'll start throwing off the ratios in recipes. Or perhaps it's just more profitable to sell them in bulk by the liter (where obviously larger eggs will earn you more).

I'm afraid that in the US today most people haven't the foggiest notion where eggs come from.

Heh, you might well be right. I remember an old Garfield strip that poked fun at this, but I never understood why thinking about where eggs come from would spoil one's appetite. Sure, eggs come from a chicken's cloaca — so what? And sure, they're unfertilized eggs (in the biological sense) that would otherwise become chicken embryos and then chickens, but that doesn't make eating them gross, either; I'd also have no problem with eating the resulting chicken, after all.

[altivo]

Just to verify my statements above, I weighed egg number 91 when I brought it in this morning. I'm too lazy to weigh several and average them as I know I should. The egg weighs in at 2.2 ounces or 64 grams on my kitchen scale.

So 90 eggs would weigh 12.375 pounds or 5.76 Kg. According to various web sources (I'm not going to chase the duck and catch her to weigh) the average Khaki Campbell weighs 4 to 5 pounds. This one is young and a bit smaller than the ones we've had in the past, so say four. Then she has laid more than three times her weight in eggs since October.

The web also says that this breed "can lay over 300 eggs a year" so her performance so far may not mean she is very unusual. Our experience with the same breed over the past decade, though, suggests that she is. Our previous ducks of this breed probably never exceeded 150 eggs in a season, and always stopped laying by November. Khakis don't win the top prize for egg production, though. The Indian Runner breed can produce 340 eggs a year, which is truly phenomenal. We've had the Runners too. They are the funniest looking ducks I've ever seen, tall and thin with an upright posture that makes them look like bowling pins with webbed feet. Their eggs are elongated and skinny, like they are, so they are easily recognizable where the Campbell eggs look just like chicken eggs.

The other breed we've kept, Cayugas, are large black ducks. They also produce a lot of eggs, but not so many as Campbells or Runners. Their eggs are larger, and have a black coating on the shell, so they are quite distinctive looking but when broken open they just look like extra large hen's eggs.

[schnee]

Quite an amazing feat when you think about it. If I wanted to lay my own weight in eggs each month, I'd have to produce a 3 kg one each day. (Ouch!)

340 eggs per year is an amazing amount indeed. BTW, since you're more likely to know than most, how many eggs do chickens (egg-laying breeds) typically lay per day? Specifically, do they sometimes lay more than one per day? (The reason I'm asking is an old song that's just going through my head now which references this.)

I've looked at Indian Runner pictures, too; I'll agree, they're funny-looking critters indeed. The Cayugas are quite pretty, too.

[altivo]

Chickens and ducks typically lay one egg in a 24 hour period. Only under very specific circumstances will they produce more than one, and almost never more than two unless they have some weird metabolic problem (and the surplus eggs are likely to be without shells, just in the natural rubbery membrane which is pretty disconcerting.

The reason for this is very specific, and has to do with the cycle of daylight and darkness and the production of luteinizing and follicle stimulating hormones. One happens in daylight, the other in darkness, and a minimum number of hours of each is required. That's why big egg farms with buildings full of caged chickens usually run their lights on about a 25 hour cycle. That turns out to maximize production, where more or less length to the "day" causes production to fall off. Kept in normal daylight, most of these birds produce eggs from spring to fall, but stop laying during the winter. That's in part caused by the shortness of the daylight period, and is the reason I'm so impressed with this duck. We've never had one that laid eggs in December or January before.

[baphnedia]

Heya, I got permission to build a pond in the back yard for water fowl, and am allowed up to three ducks (though I'd wait for hopefully three females to impress upon me). Your experience ducking and weaving inspired me, though I'm curious as to where I should go to get a primer on taking care of ducks?

I'm looking at the eggs for home use, to hopefully save a bundle over buying eggs at the supermarket (yay for rising prices, as you mentioned!). Also, it would give me pets to take care of that are more... responsive than feesh. From my past experience with ducks, they tend to be very loyal to boot. Have a good one!

[altivo]

A good general book that probably tells you all you need would be Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks by Dave Holderread. The earlier edition has the title Raising the Home Duck Flock and it's fine too. Probably easy to find at a library, certainly available to buy from Amazon or ABEBooks.

Our ducks aren't very pet like, but if you can imprint them when they first hatch, I imagine they would be. They're smarter than chickens and not as mean, that's for sure. Also more tolerant of wide variations in weather conditions, and generally easy to keep happy and healthy. Three laying females will give you more eggs than you can use alone, and you'll be giving them away most likely. If you want to imprint, then you might prefer to get a small incubator and buy fertile eggs from a supplier (they can mail them if you don't have a local source.) That doesn't let you predict sex, though, and you might end up with a bunch of drakes. The drakes are quieter, but they don't lay eggs (obviously.) The females are the quackers. Males just make croaking noises like frogs most of the time.

Depending on what predators are in your area, you may need protective fencing or at least a house of some sort to lock them up at night. We've lost two to foxes over a ten year period, and now have a "fox proof" fence around the duck area. I like the foxes but I'd rather let them eat the neighbor's loose chickens than my ducks. Raccoons, weasels, coyotes, and stray dogs and cats can be a problem too.

[schnee]

Ah, right. Very interesting!

And with the days already getting longer again, there's really no reason why your duck should stop laying now if she hasn't already, is there? Who knows, maybe on your first anniversary of getting her, you'll look back and say, wow, we really did get 366 eggs on as many days. :)

[schnee]

(On a side note, I'm sorry for apparently having started new threads several times here. I'm not sure how that happened, short of some glitch on DW's side when you follow the "reply to this comment" links in the email notifications they send you.)