Muckin' Fun Majestic T-Shirts!

We have Black Majestic T-shirts available for sale with all proceeds benefiting the sanctuary!

(Shirt front side image)

These black tees are being printed for us locally, so the decals are Larger than those available through our CafePress Gift Shop.

Our next order will be placed on November 17th, and we will be accepting orders until Midnight, November 15th. The order will be fulfilled in approximately 2 weeks and will be shipped out to purchasers within 24 hours of our receipt. This will be the last chance to order  shirts before the Christmas holiday!

If you are interested in ordering, please Email Us quantities and sizes desired and we will send you a Paypal invoice for the total amount of your order. You do not need a Paypal account in order to pay this invoice; it will give you the option to pay using your credit card OR you can print it up and send it along with your check payment.*

*Payments must be received in FULL by November 16th in order to process your order.

Quality: Hanes Beefy Tee, 100% pre-shrunk cotton

Available Sizes: S, M, L, XL, 2XL*
*Size 2XL is an additional $2.00

Black T-Shirt: $24.99 + CT sales tax (6.35%)

Mailing Envelope & Shipping (Continental US): $4.99

2012 Majestic Calendars

We have SOLD our entire first order of 2012 calendars and are preparing to order one final batch. All calendars must be prepaid to be included in our next order to prevent our sanctuary from having any remainders.

Each calendar features over 75 GORGEOUS full color photos of our rescued ducks and geese! There are large photos on each of the twelve monthly pages and there are smaller photos inserted into the squares on holidays & special occasions.

Click on images for larger views:

Each calendar features major Christian and Jewish holidays, national holidays, recognized special occasions, seasonal changes and time changes.

Calendars are selling for $19.99, which includes a small donation to the sanctuary + $4.99 to cover the cost of a shipping envelope &  postage (Continental US) + CT sales tax (6.35% ).

If you are interested in purchasing a 2012 Majestic Calendar to benefit our sanctuary (and your wall!) please Email Us quantities desired and we will send you a Paypal invoice for the total amount of your order. You do not need a Paypal account in order to pay this invoice; it will give you the option to pay using your credit card OR you can print it up and send it along with your check payment.

We will place our FINAL calendar order on November 20th!

No... There's not a Duck in my bag...

Have fun, carry your ducky things AND help our sanctuary all at the same time! Order your Muckin' Fun tote bag today at Cafepress.com!

MORE Majestic Fundraising Gifts!

Visit us at Cafepress.com for even more fun gift ideas for yourself and the waterfowl-lovers in your family!

Rattlesnakes Revisited

Thank you to John in Arizona for sending an email to us with more tips on how to keep snakes out of your duck pens:

• Snakes like to hide in tall grass and weeds, so keeping the plants in your pens trimmed is a great deterrent.

• Mice and rodents are an invitation to predators. Reduce places mice can hide to discourage snakes from lingering in and around your pens.

• Woodpiles and other dark & moist places are a snake's favorite. Remove these hideaways to entice them to move along.

If you eliminate their food source and their places to hide, snakes have less reason to hang around your duck and goose pens. Thanks, John!

Mercy, Please Eat Something!

Most newcomers who arrive at our sanctuary are starving and will take to eating Mazuri Waterfowl feed right away, but occasionally we take in a duck or goose who is a little more stubborn because they're not used to the food we're serving. Even so, a stubborn bird looking for something in particular, will normally give up to their hunger and delve into the food by their second day here. This wasn't the case with newcomer Mercy, however. She arrived in late September and absolutely refused to eat.

Most ducks and geese will mimic the behavior of other flock members and learn what to eat by watching them, but not Mercy. She would have no part of it. We did notice that any bug or stray blade of grass growing in the right direction quickly became part of her meal plan; in fact, we've never seen a duck hunt and forage as actively as Mercy. It was clear to us that whoever abandoned her did not include grain in her diet at all and probably underfed her, which motivated her to forage so actively on her own in order to sustain herself. With this in mind, we began gathering things she might have seen before, like nightcrawlers and berries in order to get her to eat something.

With some experimentation with healthy food options and consistencies, we came to the conclusion that her prior owner had likely been feeding her a slop made up of table scraps. Since this type of diet is unhealthy for waterfowl, we devised a plan to get her to switch over to a healthy diet of Mazuri feed.

The trick was to offer her enough worms and berries to sustain her, but not so much as to completely dissolve her hunger, or she wouldn’t be motivated to eat her grain. When this strategy proved ineffective against her willpower, however, we had to come up with a new plan.

We ground up Mercy's Mazuri feed in a food processor and then poured it into her food dish. When teaching a duck or goose to eat, it's important to train them using their regular food dish, so that as you change out their diet, the bowl will still remain familiar to them. After doing this, we caught a dozen nightcrawlers , mixed them in and added enough water to turn it into a bowl of thick soup—YUM!

Once we showed Mercy that there were worms buried inside, she delved recklessly into the mixture and unintentionally ate the ground up food along with the worms. This accustomed her to the flavor of the Mazuri grain.

On the second day, we didn't grind the Mazuri quite as finely and we tripled the amount of worms in the mix because the other hens wanted in on the fun too. We knew that if they were all competing over the same mixture, Mercy would be motivated to take bigger gulps in order to get at more of the worms. This worked like a charm, and she ate more grain than the day before.

On the third day, we ground the Mazuri even less, so she would get used to its normal size and shape. Again, we added lots of worms and brought it out to the pen, so the girls and Mercy could all dig into it.

On the fourth day, we didn't grind the Mazuri at all, and we didn't add worms to it either. We just made a thick mix of Mazuri and water and brought it into the pen. She searched frantically for a moment and even gobbled down a few accidental kibbles before realizing it wasn't so bad after all. Moments later, she dug into her new food with a passion and the rest is history.

It took a few more days to teach Mercy to eat food that wasn't floating on water, but today she is eating Mazuri out of her food dish like every other duck and goose here. Oh, Mercy, thank goodness you're eating!