We’ve noticed that the Muscovy ducks that hatched in spring of last year have been checking out the nest boxes in the chicken coop and sampling the oyster shell from the hanging feeder. It made us hopeful that, despite the fact that many Muscovy ducks will stop laying over the winter, ours would begin laying soon.
When we let the ducks out of the coop for breakfast this morning, one of the girls immediately ran over to the chicken coop pop door (which was still closed) and stood on the ramp. By the time we got there and opened the pop door, she had already left and was headed into the barn. We followed her to see what she was doing, and found her snuggled down into a corner. Very promising! Continue reading “Oh Happy Day: The Year’s First Duck Egg”
We live in an area that is rife with predators, and have shared stories of losses to owls, foxes, and hawks. We’ve had close calls with loose dogs, too. This is what seems to be the most challenging time of year for protecting our free ranging poultry, so we have to stay on our toes.
You probably know that ducks are very, very messy. One reason is that they love water, and will splash it everywhere. Another is that they have very wet poop, and they do a lot of it.
It’s that time again – this year is coming to its end. We like to look back at the year because you can forget how much you learned and during that period. We also like to recognize our accomplishments, as well as identify needed improvements. We characterize 2016 as our year of learning on the farm.
If you’ve read earlier posts, you know that I make (lots of) kombucha tea. With each batch, a new cellulose pellicle is formed, starting as a thin, cloudy-looking film and growing bigger and thicker with each successive batch. The Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) isn’t strictly necessary to properly culture a batch, if sufficiently strong tea from a previous batch is added to “inoculate” the brew…but it looks really cool in a jar (scare your friends!).
Well, there won’t be a white Christmas here this year (again). The temperatures have risen and it rained last night, so everything that was previously frozen is thawed and soggy. The ducks, of course, are happy…they love mud and it’s warm enough for their pools to be out. Some of them couldn’t even wait for the pools to fill before they jumped in this morning. Others were more interested in dabbling in the holes that had filled with rainwater runoff and making them even bigger.