Except keeping the pen clean and collecting the eggs, you don't have to do anything else really. You need to collect eggs everyday to discourage egg eating. I would advise getting layers pellet food for them, the male can eat it too. Ducks are hardy enough and only need a continuous supply of water and food. Plus duck eggs are yummy and are the same as hen eggs just a bit stronger, in baking 1 duck egg is 2 hen eggs :) enjoy them

terrene, I found a lot of information on line. There seems to be a bit of conflicting information regarding common names and growth zones so I'm not certain if there are two plants that can be confused with each other or what. It is a new to me plant, too. I ordered seeds from an on line vendor and I think I have what will be a smallish tree shrub type plant. I have two growing and they're doing very well for me. If the butterflies like it, I'll try more next year if I can find space to grow them. One of the things that attracted me was the rate of growth and the fact they supposedly bloom over a long season (for nectar) plus also do double duty as a host plant. I will treat them as annuals here in my zone 7b. Look at the third photo down on this page: Giant Swan Milkweed plant Try googling some of the following terms and you'll find a wealth of information on this plant. Gomphocarpus physocarpus = Asclepias physocarpa Family : Apocynaceae (Num-Num Family) Subfamily : Asclepiadoideae (Asclepiads or milkweeds) some Common names : balloon milkweed, balloon wild cotton, hairy balls milkweed, giant swan milkweed Mary Here is a link that might be useful: Photo of the seed pod on this plant

I'm not sure what advice I may be able to give to you rockstonegarden. I'm just going to start with a ramble... Take for instance, Taxodium distichum Mickelson... ok, I can propagate this tree with no royalty charge. ...It also goes by the famous known name: 'Shawnee Brave'. I use that name and now I have to pay a royalty. Someone (it is possible) will buy one of your propagations (from wherever...) and then simply calls it anything they want and now it's being propagated under two names. It's a dirty trick, yes...... This is just an example. 'Mickelson' however was the first name chosen for "Shawnee Brave" - in this particular case, someone "stole" from the original name to make money on a plant already being propagated. This above example was the furthest thing in my mind, so I've chosen to start with the lesser important information. Patents - all that stuff - you probably won't see a dime for 10 or 15 to even as far as, 20 years. I've heard this from old-time grafters as well as a very prominent Author in North America. This is the reason: The time it will take you to get this tree out and being sold and where you make your royalty as well as "all the hassle" of patenting a plant - you'll have already starved to death, waiting... it's really that simple. If you chose not to try to make money, you could get that plant sent around to more grafters who in turn get the plant in peoples gardens. The objective of beautifying peoples gardens. Now I'm just going to say this..... nobody has asked you how long the yellow color lasts - there are already so many spruces that flush yellow, available, that the market is flooded. And there are a lot of good ones too. One quick example before I go to my last thought to actually help you if you are bound and determined to proceed with patenting it is this... a nursery friend who grows Picea pungens in the field finds as a well averaged #, 1 golden pushing seedling per 100,000 seedlings. This year I think he found 4. Here you go... I might look at Buchholz & Buchholz Nursery for your propagation TM/Patent needs. They describe themselves as 'finding the most unusual plants from all parts of the world'. Boyko Nursery in Oregon - would be "my" first choice, though. I don't even know them personally, but I've heard so much good about the guy... and that's exactly what they do... you might consider a simple "growers contract" with one nursery such as them - Good luck. Dax

I also agree with everyone else, that baffle needs to get back on there asap. The baffle will not scare the adults off. I don't think it would even affect them if it was put on before egg laying commenced. We luckily don't have snakesaround here but we do have raccoons and there are raccoons everywhere whether people see them or not or think they have them or not. We had some boxes that didn't have baffles on them, normally TRES nested in them and for some reason we never had problems when TRES nested. This year the Blues took one of those boxes and I was lax on getting the baffle intstalled, it should have been on there to begin with but never was. Well of course a raccoon climbed the 1/2 conduit and got two of the five babies one night. Thankfully the conduit must have been hard to hold onto and that was all it got. I could see the hair and grass stuck to the pole going up and the nest was a mess and two babies were gone, that is why I knew it was a coon. I got a baffle on that pole immediately the day I found that and had to take the babies out and fix the nest. Two days later there was a raccoon paw print on the baffle, but it didn not try to climb up with the baffle on. The remaining three would have been lost too had I not had a baffle on. Just cause it never happened before doesn't mean it won't happen. Tell your neighbor he doesn't want to learn the hard way that it will and can happen any time!! Donna