Chicks

New to us this year are chickens! Yes, 4 little chicks that prove why duck-raising is both more enjoyable and more challenging than chicken raising. 

Here’s Tippy Canoe. She’s a buff orpington.  Right now, she is at the top of the pecking order, but also the biggest (most mature chicken) of the bunch.

Miss Tippy

Then we have HennyPenny and Lexie, the Barred Rocks. To me, these are classic “farm” chickens with their wide behinds and speckled black feathers. Henny Penny is also known as the Brave Barred as she rarely scatters when I come by to feed them or go to pick them up.

Lex & Pen at the Front

Lastly, we have Eggy Peggy, a silver-laced Wyandotte. She’s small now (younger) but will grow up to be decently sized chicken.

The littlest chicken of all - Eggy Peggy

They all will be medium to large birds with brown eggs. I’m surprised at how soft they are. And how quiet. These things are church mice compared to ducks! I also thought they were all dying in the first 48 hours because they hardly drank any water and they were going through food at a rate that made me wonder if they had worms. Nope. They are just chickens.

While daily care for them might be easier than our ducks, they aren’t intelligent. But then, maybe that makes them all the more lovable...

The Duck Days of Summer - Part 2

Now for the birds you’ve never seen.

A few months ago we connected with a retiring duck farmer (at one point he raised 700+ birds on his land) and purchased some of his flock. He was liquidating his Muscovies, so we bought 23 birds with the intention of slaughtering most for meat and keeping a few for breeding. The meat is leaner than mallard-descended ducks, but still very good. We lost 5 due to a mystery that is now resolved thanks to an avian expert (which, I will write about another day), butchered 14, and kept 4 females.

Mrs. Little is all-black and looks like the Little described earlier. Mrs. Brown is a beautiful brown and white that reminds me of a Britney Spaniel. Then we kept 2 white and black speckled females, one of who we fondly call Escapy (Esk-uh-pee) because, well, she is capable of escaping from anything or anywhere.  They don’t lay eggs quite yet, but will soon. Instead of quacking, the females trill. It is a beautiful noise—just listen. We will breed them with Little in the future, and hopefully have a self-sustaining meat source that is very low maintenance. They are less socialized than our other birds and are still getting used to the idea that I feed the ducks kitchen scraps off the back porch. They often miss the memo until everything’s been devoured.

Mrs. Brown

Mrs. Little and Friends

The other muscovies... NOM/*tear*
(Seared duck breast on a bed of sweet potatoes & chanterelles with a cherry balsamic reduction)

Our last 5 ducks came around Easter as day-olds. They are all females and all Khaki Campbells. As an experiment, we didn’t “hand-raise” these babies and instead put them with the other ducks early on. They enjoy following around any brown duck (Golden or Khaki Campbell) to the water, food, or foraging, but particularly love cuddling close to Mama Duck. They gather outside her nestbox during the day and attempt to guard her against anything that comes near. When they are outside, they can be found stumbling as they run down the hill and tripping over their long legs. They are as uncoordinated as toddlers and as awkward as teenagers. Eventually, they will lay eggs too.

The babies following Goldie

And then there is Edgar (blind and/or brave duck). He's not new, as you may remember. but he deserves his own spotlight. He’s still blind. He’s still a little neurotic. Yes, he still walks in circles and can’t get in and out of the duck house on his own, but he is lovely all the same. When Ms. Duck spent so long rehabilitating her leg this winter, Edgar joined her to make sure she wasn’t lonely. When the baby Khakis got introduced to the adult ducks, Edgar spent the first week with them inside their house helping them get acclimated. And when the little girls from down the street desperately want to hold and pet a duck, Edgar is the guy for the job.  

 

Just keep spinning, just keep spinning

 

And those, friends, are our 25 ducks/ducklings. We’ll let you know if Mama Duck hatches her first clutch next month and make sure we post pictures more regularly now that the weather is nice. J

TTFN!

The Duck Days of Summer - Part 1

Our homestead is ever expanding and changing. It seems rather appropriate to provide a thorough update of who is who on the land and who is expected in the coming months.  Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!

First, we have our “original” flock(s) from last year. We have 17 adult ducks, so they are a little difficult to gather and pose for a group shot. I hope these suffice:

 

Family Photo

You’ll immediately recognize Alice and Ms. Duck, the large white Pekins. Alice has maintained her Top-of-The-Flock status and can be regularly found displaying her gorgeous (and incredibly soft) self for everyone to see. Ms. Duck is still a little strange: Standoffish with humans but desperately interested in being part of the flock. She misses the social cues of the other ducks and marches to a different drummer. She is sort of a “weak” duck with regular accidents (she once sprained her leg flying into another duck in the middle of our icy winter and had to spend 6 weeks rehabilitating in our garage), but balances our flock out and makes us very glad she’s part of our family. Both lay white eggs of gargantuan proportions every day or so. 

 

The Glamorous Alice

 

The not-so-Glamorous Ms. Duck



Then there are the Khaki Campells. These are the babies that arrived with Alice over a year ago in a straight run (mixed sex). We butchered the males (except Muffin, our stud and Edgar) and kept the females. Along the way, we lost our fair share (remember Jerome?). Now we are down to Splitfoot and one other female who doesn’t have a name. They lay good sized white eggs daily and are pretty social with us humans.

Splitfoot and Nameless

 

(stud)Muffin

Next come the Golden 300s. This is a hybrid variety that we got for egg production. They look nearly identical to the Khaki Campbells but have a darker wingstripe and a light brown facial stripe that the Khakis are missing. We have 5 Golden females and 1 male (Bismarck). We have a light one named Goldie who regularly squeezes through the fencing to wander among the goats or sneaks into the neighbor’s yard to eat her fill of dandelions without competition. We also have Mama Duck who has gone broody and is sitting her eggs as I type. It’s amazing to watch her pull bedding into her already full nest box and nuzzle her warm eggs. They lay a medium sized egg a day.

The Golden Girls with Bismarck Behind

 Mr. Bee’s attempt to restore the world through breeding of this “endangered” (aka rare, domesticated) breed? Ah yes. The Magpies.  Well, we have 3 females that are currently happy to be part of the flock. Don’t let their iridescent feathers or unique patterns fool you into thinking they are docile beauty queens. These 3 ducks make as much noise as our entire flock combined. Black Beak is the loudest and serves as the appointed “spokes duck” for her breed. Next, there is Freckle Face and Skinny Head. They usually stick together and produce an egg every day or so. Although many flock raisers describe their meat as gourmet, we didn’t like the taste and actually bartered the butchered males for other items. And those supposedly green eggs? Try a white egg with a dark brownish-green (aka baby poo) bloom to it. Not my favorite breed to say the least. We will be finding another way to save the world—sorry Mr. Bee! 

 



The Magpies Showing Their Backsides (typical...)

 And what happened to the little Muscovies you may be wondering? Well, one got lost with Butry and the other has become quite the fixture on our homestead. Little, as we aptly named him at the time, is huge. He is the Alpha Male and loves to assert himself by opening his large beak wide and “hissing” or breathing very heavily since the male ducks can’t quack. He is friendly like a puppy, and follows me around while I do morning chores. He wags his big butt and fans his tail in hopes of a treat, then pants like a retriever while he waits. I love Little.

 



Little!!

To meet the ducks I haven't introduced you to yet, check out my next post.