Today I found a surprise when I went out to get the chicken eggs. I took a quick peek in the duck house to make sure that nobody laid in it...and....


This is a Cayuga egg (they range from grey to light grey blue, according to our catalog --- the Runner duck eggs will be white when they start laying). We weren't expecting any of the ducks to start laying until spring so this is quite a surprise! It was fairly small, smaller than the chicken eggs, so probably was the first. (I'm sure they'll get larger with time).

And here they are again (more in focus). I think that's Daria in front. It could be Darcy (hard to tell the difference.....at least with the Runners, Daisy has more freckle-spots and pinker feet than Delilah; With the Cayugas, Daria is a teensy little bit bigger then Darcy...or at least was 2 months ago). Either way, there's one of Cayuga who always looks darned intelligent when I bring out the camera...or even do anything really. That's this one. :-)

...and here are  the ducklings, all grown up. (I know, I've been reeeeally behind on updated pictures of the new flock, so I'm trying to redeem myself with some cute duck pictures.)


The grey one is one of our Blue Indian Runner ducks (either Daisy or Delilah), and the black one is one of our Cayuga ducks (either Daria or Darcy).

Two weekends ago we finally bit the bullet and built a chicken run (hens roaming two houses down--and they're not close-together-houses, mind you---was a bit much. The neighbors thought it was funny...but...y'know. "Good fences make good neighbors" and all....)


It's pretty roomy, though...we haven't heard too many complaints.


The gate is quite temporary, and still needs some work. We have a better one in the works and it's in the process of being painted :-)

Dorian is finally just about finished molting.


This was him about 2 weeks ago. (and the pile below has grown exponentially since then)

When we opened the chicken door on the coop on Saturday morning, this was the initial reaction.


"About time you let us out of here...WAAAA.... What's all of this cold white stuff all over everything?!?!"

One of the things I really like about snow where we live is all of the animal tracks...The things that you never knew were even around become evident after a snow, as you see their prints criss-crossing the yard and driveway. We've seen house cat tracks (not ours, we don't have a cat), rabbit tracks, deer tracks, raccoon tracks, dozens of types of birds' tracks, and the occasional large mammal (?) tracks. These tracks, are a little bit puzzling, however....


So let's follow them and see where they lead....


Hmm, I suspect....


Aha. Yep. Don't let a little bit of snow and ice slow you down, guys!

So today when we got home, our duck, Neptune, was missing. Agh. It was nasty and wet and 44 degrees all day. Kind of hard to believe that there was a predator out in that weather, but of course that's possible. Then again, he had a weird cough for about a week. So it's also possible that caught up with him. I'm not sure we'll ever know.

I do hope the remaining two stay warm enough on their own tonight. We put fresh bedding in their house to help keep them warmer. Looks like we'll definitely be considering getting some more ducks next spring...and I do wish our ducks would stop disappearing. Or at least I wish I knew why.

We thought we were going to have a bit of male to female ratio problem when we noticed that two of the ducks had started ganging up on the third....perhaps the odd man out? The two in the foreground were chasing the one in the background (thus it's distance from the other two)...then again, the other day, the one in the background chased the closest one out of the pool. Hmmm.

Soooo....have you ever wondered how to tell a male duck from a female duck?
Here's how:


Now confirmed: there are definitely three sets of tail feathers that all look kinda like this. All males.

So much for duck eggs for a while.

So here's the story (other then the awesome and obvious fact that we've got one coat of paint on the chicken coop...) when Ruby duck disappeared (and both Dorian and Napoleon began exhibiting curled tails) we thought we definitely had an issue. You see, after looking into it, we learned that optimal female to male ratio for ducks is 3 to one (or so the experts say) otherwise they could be more likely to fight. Since we thought we had2 males and onefemale...this was an issue. (Of course, since then, it looks like Dorian's curled tail may have just been a new feather coming in weird...it's um...kind of...gone. Napoleon there's no question about, however.) Beyond that, we'd like our garage back :-) and we're pretty worn out from building things so we thought we'd cheat....that little orange (for now....) building is a purchased dog house.

It needs modification, but that shouldn't be too hard. We need to put a locking door on it (note the plywood blocking the doorway right now...there was a chicken that apparently wandered in and spent the night in solitary confinement the day we got it...so the blockade is necessary) and a few vents. Also, I'm thinking a window for a vent like the chickens have---it might get too warm in there for them otherwise. It looks like it could hold maybe up to 6 ducks. (Popular knowledge recommends 3 square feet per duck...but since they range all day long and apparently all ducks ignore that measurement rule...this is probably ok... we just need to make sure they don't get too warm in the summer.)

Yesterday, when we came home, Ruby duck was missing. Coyote? Fox? Bobcat? Wanderlust or a walkabout? We're not sure. We looked all over, and couldn't find any signs of a struggle--no feathers or anything. The other ducks didn't seem worried or alarmed (which is saying something since they all follow each other around in a pack...)

They've all been flying (about 2 feet off the ground) after me to get to the chicken coop in the morning, and they are mallard mixes....so it's entirely possible that she just flew off. Especially, I think, in light of the other ducks not acting scared or worried. Then again, if they never saw the beasty that got her...they wouldn't necessarily be acting strangely.

In other news, two of the remaining ducks seem to have tail curls now: it looks like Napoleon and Dorian were both aptly named. Of course that means we now have what looks like 2 males and 1 female and that's not good. I think we're going to have to look into getting a few more female ducks in order to keep the peace around here, 'specially with Ruby gone.

On Monday we found another egg in the nestboxes. It's from one of the Red Stars. That's a half dozen so far, and much earlier than I thought we would get that many....but I do wish the White Rocks would keep up! :-)


Oh--and a gratuitous duck picture...aren't they getting big? Napoleon is getting a little curled feather on his tail...so he might be a male. No other tail curls so far...

There's nothing like a refreshing dip...looks like July is here!

First:

Nest boxes mounted, roof done. It needs some shingles or something (it's just plywood so far) but that can wait--it"ll be at least temporarily habitable with a tarp tied down. The chickens are getting really big so we want to get it habitable asap. We also added another layer of plywood to the floor (just in case...we never put a tarp over it so it was getting pretty weathered..)

Things are starting to bloom in the garden (tomatoes, peppers, beans....) All of the seeds are germinating (cucumbers, squash, okra).

Oh, and here are some updated duck and chicken pics:

Our nest box for the chicken coop is done--looks good. (Update with pic from weekend of June 13th when we mounted it) The chickens are on the next step up of feed, now: grower/finisher. They're getting really big---and growing pretty tame.

The ducks like their baby pool! They're developing feathers with medium brown scallops on the edge--very pretty. Two of them are dark in color (one has a yellow/turning white ring on it's neck and the other has one leg that wobbles...think it's ok, though.) and two of them are light grey with yellow striped faces. All of them have those scallops, but the light ones have lighter brown tummies too..

Ok, so let's back up a bit......actually we originally just wanted ducks. For eggs, you know? Apparently they're not all that hard to keep, and are fairly winter hardy (supposedly). But well, I 'spose the lure of chickens had won us over...(have you ever visited a feed store when they get their chicks and duckling in? I mean, do you have a heart of steel?) Anyway. So we actually had some free ducklings coming all along from a friend of S. And today we picked them up. 4 instead of 3 (bonus duck) :-)


Apparently they're mallard mixes, Possibly with Runner Ducks, and approximately 3 weeks old (picked them up on the 30th). They drink a lot. But well, they're ducks. Go figure, right? And they really liked the little bath we gave them---apparently they need gradual exposure to water to build up their waterproofing. Of course, we had to make them a brooder too....we rigged one up with a kiddie pool and some plastic fencing--they're more skittish and taller than the chickens, so it kind of suits them to have an open ceiling. They're in the garage too, of course...

The chickens are getting big. We need to switch to the next step-up of feed next weekend for them. They were trying to take dust baths in the driveway...and, one was trying to "yodel". Hmmmm could a rooster be in our midst?