By VICKY BOYD
Special to the Ceres (Calif.) Courier
Ceres-area almond grower Tim Sanders has been a fan of waterfowl ever since he was 5 years old and his father took him hunting for the first time.
“They don’t have to do any type of adaptation to be on this planet,” he said. “They can fly, they can swim in the water and they can walk on the ground. That’s why I’ve always been fascinated by them.”
Sanders became even more enthralled with waterfowl after his grandmother gave him a mallard duck egg to care for, and it eventually hatched. Like most ducklings, the young bird imprinted on the first creature it saw, which happened to be Sanders.
As he recently recalled the episode, he laughed at how the duck would follow him around and sit on his chest to watch TV. Thus, was born Sanders’ life-long love of waterfowl that has grown into a hobby.
Grandma’s turkey farm
Growing up, Sanders remembers going to his grandparents’ farm near Ceres, where they moved to in 1920. During the early years, his grandmother was one of the largest commercial turkey raisers in the area. Unlike the industry today that focuses on rearing birds in turkey houses, birds back then were raised free range.
“My grandmother would never have any turkey here other than a broad-breasted bronze,” Sander said, referring to what is now considered a heritage breed. Family lore even has it that Max Foster, founder of Foster Farms, came out to learn how to raise turkeys.
During his childhood visits, Sanders said he was tasked with gathering turkey eggs to take to the hatchery building. The structure still stands today but houses only two small incubators that Sanders uses.
His grandparents retired in the 1960s, and Sanders and his wife, Sue, eventually moved to the farm in 1974. The fields on which the turkeys once ranged are planted to almonds. While Sanders has raised a few turkeys over the years, he still prefers waterfowl.
A waterfowl menagerie
Currently, Sanders has 250 to 300 waterfowl in pens and roosting houses that range from the more common Canada geese, wood ducks, ruddy ducks and cinnamon teal to more exotic species like barred geese from India, barnacle geese from Asia, ring teal from South America and nene geese from Hawaii.
All of this is done under state and federal migratory bird permits, which require Sanders to conduct and send in an annual census of his birds. For all North American species, he also must pinion, or clip, one of their wings, clip a back toe or band an ankle.
In addition, Sanders has a coop and keeps bantam and other chicken breeds for eggs.
He credits his uncle, Bob Godring, for getting him involved with raising and caring for the various waterfowl species. As Sanders’ hobby has grown, he’s also befriended other waterfowl collectors throughout California, and they regularly get together to trade or sell different birds.
Because of his incubators, collectors often bring him cartons of eggs to hatch. Using a candler that shines bright light through the eggs, he can see whether the bird embryo is viable and moving or whether it is dead.
At one time, Sanders said he had even more birds than he currently does. But as he has grown older, he said he cut back because of the amount of work involved in caring for them. That includes draining ponds and cleaning pens each week as well as feeding and watering the birds daily.
“It’s truly a labor of love,” Sanders said.
Say Aloha to nene
One of his favorite species is nene geese, which at one time were federally endangered because their numbers had dipped to roughly 30 birds in the 1950s. Native to the Hawaiian Islands, nene fell victim to habitat destruction and predation from feral cats and Indian mongooses introduced to control rats.
Their numbers have since rebounded to more than 3,800 within the Hawaiian Islands, thanks in part to a captive breeding program, and the species has been downgraded to federally threatened. Breeders on the mainland, such as Sanders, can possess nene with the proper paperwork. But because of Hawaii’s strict quarantines, they can’t send any of their mainland-raised geese to Hawaii.
Nene resemble smallish Canada geese, which is natural because taxonomists believe the Hawaiian native descended from the larger honker beginning about 500,000 years ago. Being sequestered on the islands, nene evolved to fit their habitat.
The webbing between their toes, for example, is only about half that of Canada geese, allowing them to better walk on lava flows, Sanders pointed out. Nene also have longer and stronger legs designed for improved running on land compared to their Canadian counterparts.
Uncle Gondring obtained one of the first nene pairs on the mainland several years ago and shared eggs with Sanders. Nene have a much quieter disposition than the more aggressive Canada geese, capturing Sanders’ fancy.
He currently has 33 adult and gosling nene, with a hen still nesting on eggs. When they hatch, his total could be close 40, which he said is more than he needs.
Nene are good parents, with the hen sitting on the eggs for about 30 days while the male guards her. Because of that, Sanders said he rarely intervenes to collect eggs to put in the incubator.
Wood ducks are a different story. He’s learned to let then sit on the nest for about two weeks before gathering eggs for incubation. When he grabbed freshly laid eggs, the hatch-out rate was about 50%. But waiting the two weeks resulted in hatch-outs of more than 90%. Should other waterfowl abandon their nests, he’ll also collect the eggs to incubate.
Most of the species in his pens seem to get along well much of the year without major tiffs. During the spring breeding season, Sanders said some will become a bit more aggressive.
The exceptions are Canada geese. During the first year of life, Sanders said they’re typically fine. But as they enter their breeding age beginning at 2 years old, they can become unruly and downright nasty.
This season, he had to put a pair in a separate time-out pen because they weren’t playing well with others.
–Vicky Boyd is a Stanislaus County Farm Bureau journalist. The Stanislaus County Farm Bureau serves as the voice of Stanislaus County agriculture at all levels of government, while providing programs to assist its farms and family members and educate the general public of needs and importance of agriculture.
