Pullet Eggs!!! Months too soon!

If there's a time to every purpose under Heaven, then WHOA! The time has come to make nest boxes for the little ladies, the Speckled Sussex hens. This is months earlier than we expected!

Pictured is a basket of duck eggs. Beside the basket, you'll see two tiny brown eggs, gifts from a precocious Lady Sussex. 

Chris opened the brooder door on her recently and she looked shocked and dismayed that he would just blatantly walk in on her while she was doing her business. There she sat feeling indignant, in a tuft of bedding she had pulled together for a nest. Chris is pretty sure she shouted, "Uh, WHAT?! SHUT THE DOOR! I'M BUSY IN HERE!" (heavy sigh)

In her disgust, she may have laid her small brown chicken egg somewhere else that day. If so, we never found it. 

With winter fast approaching, this presents us with two immediate problems: 

(1) The hens don't yet see the chicken condo as home, just as a place to hang out during the day. They sleep in the tiny brooder house. 
(2)The chicken condo needs nest boxes that are yet to be built and some more winterization. 

Soon the little hens will make the permanent migration to the chicken condo with its greener pastures. It's right next door and they're used to it. They go to it through a wire tunnel every day, range around outside for awhile, then spend the rest of the day inside. Later, toward sundown, the pullets go back through a wire tunnel to their brooder house to sleep. They've become creatures of habit. You could set a clock by them. But now, with one laying eggs already, we are so unprepared!


Another first: Roosti-Roo, our one beautiful little Sussex rooster, has learned to crow!!! He's egg-cited , I think, so he's gearing up to serve the needs of 48 hens. Poor Roosti! 

Our  4 duck hens are already giving us three eggs a day, two in their nesting box and one in their pool. The ducks are also creatures of habit, we're discovering, but they provide enough eggs that I've been able to make noodles, chocolate mousse, Hollandaise sauce, have eggs for breakfast, and still share some with friends and family!

The fact that the ducks supply our egg needs brings up another problem, not so immediate, but one that needs a solution: What to do with all the chicken eggs once the hens are laying regularly? I had looked at designing a "Farm Fresh Eggs" sign for in front of the house or barn. Now I'm thinking more and more about joining the local Farmer's Market. The people who go with eggs sell out so early! But if I do, what else should I provide? I thought about making aprons but Chris says they're not a farm product. Really? So then what? I thought about little pies: Pauley's Petite Pastries. Maybe. What do you think?

Pauley's Pampered Poultry: Pekin Ducks

Here are the ducks in their wading pool. Once they get into the water, the ducks seem to swim in unison, clockwise, for a couple of minutes before they start splashing.

The ducks entertain us. Likewise, we try to give them things to entertain them. For one thing, the ducks love the wading pool! They're happy, so happy they started laying their eggs early, and that is where the trouble begins.

Their favorite way to play in the water is to splash it out. Then, they waddle out of the water and drill down into the surrounding wet grass to get to the roots. Then back into the water. SPLASH! SPLASH! Eventually the water gets dirty.

Our ducks don't seem aware that they lay eggs. They just go SPLAT! and there's an egg. They give their eggs no more attention than they give their excrement and, like excrement, it can fall out anywhere--in the tall grass, by the feeder, and even in the murky water. Then,

 SPLISH, SPLASH, SPLAT!

Chris tried his best to accommodate their egg-laying needs by building a nesting box for the ducks. At first, they were afraid of it. So then he put golf balls in it, but since they wouldn't come near the box and they didn't associate golf balls with eggs, that was futile. Finally, he took an egg from their murky pool and put it in the nesting box. Although their brains are small, one of them must have caught on! Now, about 1 egg in 6 can be found in the nesting box! 

That's learning, one little duck waddle at a time, 

maybe smaller than a baby step, but that's progress!

The ducks are beginning to take notice and are getting over their fear.  See the nesting box in the corner?

Hoop Coop

Chris completed his 10' X 20' Hoop Coop (that's what he's calling it) just in time for the ducklings' 3-week birthday.

The ducklings wasted no time trying to learn all about their new residence. Just wait til the wading pool comes!

Tarps and chicken wire over cattle panels should ward off predators but, just in case, the Hoop Coop is surrounded by electric fence. The potato patch is in the foreground.

They're looking cozy! Earlier today, when Chris caught them, they must have thought they'd met their end. He picked them up just like you should, petted them and tried to calm them but they weren't happy about it. Now they have fresh air and natural ventilation, both sunshine and shade, and all the grass, bugs, feed, grit and water they could want.
If it has to be a short life, at least it can be comfy!
(To the ducklings: Happy 3 Week Birthday!  :)  Enjoy the Hoop Coop!)

Good Day for Ducks!

The weather, being what it is, will likely do what she wants to do. Is it a good day for ducks? I asked Chris. His fact du jour was that the ducklings need to stay in their brooder and out of the rain. To allow them to swim in a pool of water could be fatal. The reason: Since Chris became their surrogate mother, they don't have the advantage of their mother's natural oil that penetrates feathers and keeps ducklings afloat on water. Besides, their brooder provides the ducklings a clean, controlled environment with steady temperatures and protection from predators.

It's working. All eleven ducks are healthy and active and, when I visit, they give me a cocked-head sideways look that only ducks can do, like they're thinking I don't know what you are or why you're even here, but I think it's time for you to leave!

Right now Chris is making a movable "schooner" so that when the ducklings can get outside, there won't be a chance for a predator to break through. He's already built a fence, electric and woven wire combined, to keep out the big critters. The ducklings will live inside this schooner that will keep out everything but sunshine, insects and small birds. Chris will move the schooner around the poultry yard from time to time to give the ducks fresh grazing. By the time they get outside, the ducklings should be ready for their wading pool.

All this for table fare? You're right, and here's why. We want to raise a portion of the meat we consume and give the animals a good life. Suppose a person eats 8 oz. of meat a day. The cost of getting started with poultry is a one-time expense, except for maintenance, and with little continued overhead. The cost of producing poultry is considerably less than beef because their weight gain is so rapid!  Raising ducks requires less land than raising a steer, much less time to reach maturity, less feed per pound of weight gain, and we like the meat. So it's a good choice for us. Improved quality of life=improved meat. On top of that, the environmental footprint is greener than it would be with beef.

Is it a good day for ducks? Yes, if you're in an environment that takes care of your every need!!! That's what we're doing! And we'll keep on doing it to the end of their days!

It's all good except for one little problem: I still haven't found the white vintner grapes that I can grow in this locale that would make a really delicious and smooth wine to serve with duck.

Getting Our Ducks in a Row

Chris loves a good challenge and homesteading provides several opportunities to stretch one's physical boundaries as well as knowledge base. He has been working on both a brooder and a chicken coop for our chicks, not yet arrived, and he began thinking about ducks. When Chris starts thinking about things, watch out! He'll stay up all night long reading about the topic du jour but it continues night after night until his brain is saturated with mostly valuable, sometimes useless, information that spills over. Right now he's giving me a fact a day about ducks. I'm learning a lot from him, but I have to tell you, raising ducks is something I never thought I'd be doing. So, of course, he wants to try out his new brooder with ducklings first before the chicks arrive. It makes sense, considering the weather. We've had nothing but rain and ducks love puddles!

That brings me to one of his newly discovered and amazing facts:
Did you know that, if you raise little hatchling ducks that haven't been around their mother, they don't get her natural oil and that means that, if they go into a pond without that protective oil on their feathers, they won't swim? Their feathers will instead absorb the water and the baby ducklings will sink and drown! It takes a few weeks for their own oils to coat their feathers enough to keep ducklings afloat! I don't want to test that to see for sure that it's factual so NO PONDS ALLOWED!

Today I placed our order for a few baby ducklings, Pekin ducks from Meyer Hatchery at http://www.meyerhatchery.com. These ducks will be white as adults and I'm actually getting excited.

Part of that excitement is that I enjoy an occasional meal of duck and that gets me thinking about a glass of Pinot Grigio, which reminds me--I still would like to try growing some vintner grapes! I'm looking for just a few vinifera vines that are suitable for growing in southern Ohio's clay soil and humid climate. After all, it takes planning to produce your own meal of duck with white wine but I can imagine that this venture could be fun! Anyone know of a good source for vinifera vines in Ohio? And, please, don't mention to Chris that his "foxy" lady is planning to eat his ducks. (And yes, I mean "foxy" as in "conniving"!)

As you can see, whether ours is a marriage made in Heaven or not, Chris and I were meant for each other. We bought ourselves a beautiful and cherished calligraphy painting for our first anniversary almost 28 years ago that says it all:   I was meant for someone who welcomes a challenge!