Reading an article about chickens recently, made me really miss ours. But what made me miss them even more was working in the garden the other day. I had a lovely pile of scrumptious green weeds and realized there were no chickens to share them with. And I miss looking out the window and seeing where their favorite scratching spot is that day. I miss walking out the door and having them all follow me.
I haven’t shared the news with you all yet, but our chickens have been killed. Every last one of them. Some kind of critter broke into our coop (even with Jeff’s solidly constructed door) and killed them. Big bummer! But we’ve learned that losing animals is a part of country/farm life. We have dreams of building an entirely new chicken coop. (The old one needs to be torn down anyway.)
We thought about ordering some chicks this Spring, but I’ve been dreaming of ducks for a few years now so we decided to order ducklings this year instead. Jeff has been a little hesitant about ducks because of their large and rather messy, runny poops. Also because of needing to keep a pond for them. But he also really loves ducks and we’re really excited to experience them. (Plus we are getting a kind that doesn’t like ponds.) Ducks eat slugs! And in this part of the world- that can be a garden saver!
So we’ve put in our order for 20 runner ducks, which will be arriving at our local feed store in April. We wanted to get all female, but they were super expensive, so we are going with the more affordable option- the surprise.
And about chickens? We definitely want chickens again. It’s hard to imagine this homestead without them (and boy do we miss those eggs!) We don’t want to take on too much all at once, so we will stick with ducklings this year and then order more chicks next Spring.
We’ll start again…
We have ducks but we’ve never had a pond. We just fill up a kiddie pool for them periodically and let them play. They seem perfectly content. ๐
I’d take ducks over chickens any day…so sweet and funny.
Teri!
Thank you! Now I know! ๐ I got confused when I didn’t see your name.
Have fun with your goat babies!!! ๐ Hooray!
Love, Taryn
oh, and just the chickens and goats over here for now – they keep us plenty busy
(and one mama goat is in early stages of labor as i type… yay! new babies on the way!)
teri
oops, sorry! i should have signed that!
the post about the bantams is from teri, at braided bower farm – i commented recently that we seem to be sort of neighbors, and that we know cheryl smith…
so yeah, we’re nearby, and easy to let one of our mamas raise up some chicks for you, if you ever decide you’d like some bantams
can’t wait to hear your duck stories!
I’ve never raised bantams before or hatched eggs. (though Jeff has.) I always thought it would be so fun to hatch our own eggs.
We usually love to order a variety of kinds, but I’ll let you know if we get interested in bantams. ๐ Thanks for offering!
What kind of critters do you have?
Do you live in Oregon too?
Indeed lots of duckling adventures to come! ๐
oh taryn, i’m so sorry about your chickens
yes, it’s part of farm life, but it’s still so hard to lose them
we have mixed breed bantam chickens that are wonderful at foraging – the hens also go broody A LOT, so we usually let them raise a few clutches a year
when/if you decide to get back into chickens again, let me know if you’d like some bantam mixes – it’d be really easy to let a mama hen set some eggs for you!
(i know we don’t even know each other, but as a “sort of” neighbor i just feel moved to make the offer
no worries if bantams aren’t what you want or if you prefer to raise chicks yourself or whatever…)
and regardless, enjoy your ducklings! we’ve often thought of getting runner ducks, but i don’t think that will happen anytime soon… we’ve got enough critters on our hands for now!
i look forward to reading of your duck adventures…
dailydialect- I’ve heard that too. I wonder why?
Melissa- sweet! Thanks for sharing. I love the iridescent green coloring!
I hope that Jeff’s experience is ours too! I thought I’d send you a wikipedia link so you can see the pretty looking duck we’re hoping to get
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayuga_Duck
This has been a lovely little conversation by the way. ๐
enjoy your duck eggs! They are easier on the system for many people!
Never heard of that kind before.
Jeff’s experience is that once the garden grows up enough (is no longer tiny starts)that the ducks won’t eat it at that stage. Look forward to seeing how that goes. ๐
Let me know how your plan works out too. And good luck finding those ducks!
We’re looking to get Cayuga ducks, though in Tasmania there’s not lots of breeders listed, so there’ll be a little bit of luck involved. Cayugas are supposed to be placid birds and excellent for slug patrols. We plan to herd them into our food garden for a couple of hours a day for them to feed up on slug and snails, and then herd them out before they damage our plants. That’s the theory anyway, and I hope it works!
Melissa- I LOVE the quote you posted about ducks! That is so funny and I want to share that.
What kind of ducks do you want to try?
I love indian runners! I’m so excited!
Heidi- Hi! Love hearing from you! I’m excited for you to get animals also. And I will be posting adorable duckling pictures for you to enjoy in the meantime. ๐
Sorry to hear that your chickens were killed. My friend here in Portland has 3 ducks in her very small backyard, she ended up with two boys and one girl.
I can’t wait to move out of the city and get some animals. Especially after seeing so many sweet goat babies on peoples blogs.
Can’t wait to see pictures of your new duck family later this spring!
Blessings to you and your family!
I know exactly what you mean. We’ve had a spotted quoll (a beautiful carnivore) in our chicken house and it simply slaughtered every chicken it found without actually eating anything. My theory was that a quoll is also geared to take out a sick animal as its prey – and therefore chickens in captivity might all be considered ‘sick’.
Bantam chickens have proved more cautious than the larger birds and have managed to hide from the eagles, falcons and goshawks, but even so their numbers have dwindled.
We’ve also made the decision to try ducks – as Bill Mollison (who was one of the founders of Permaculture) said,
‘You don’t have a slug problem, you’ve got a duck deficiency’.
I hope you’re Indian Runners prove successful and I’m sure you’ll be endeared by their personalities and funny little duckish ways.