Ducks are not geese

Go figure, huh?

On March 2nd, we brought home 10 pekin meat ducks and 2 runners (because LJ wanted them). :) They were precious little fluff balls. Screeching, "run away, run away!", fluff balls. There's the first difference between these disgusting little creatures and our geese. The geese ran TO us. Heck, Bitor came home with me because he was in a mucky brooder with a mass of ducks. They ran to the far side of the feed store brooder, and little Bitor (Sweet Boy then, and not now, thus the name change), covered in duck poop and mucky bedding, ran TO me and looked up at me with pitiful squeaks. I was a sucker (actually, I really do like the big bitey jerk, just a little).

When you hold these ducks, they struggle to get away, all but the little runner with black feet (we've named him/her Darkwing Duck). Darkwing will snuggle down in your hand once you catch him/her. Here's the second difference. The ducks don't seem to recognize a person's face. Meaning, put your face down to them, and they look everywhere but your face. The goslings looked us straight in the face and talked like we could understand them (sorta like a 2yr old, or Henry for that matter, telling me about his day). "Uh huh. Really? Then what happened?" The goslings wanted in our laps, and they wanted to talk and talk and then take a nap on us. They were such sweet babies.

Darkwing and as-yet-unnamed runner duckling

Difference number three. These ducks are filthy. They fling food everywhere. Everywhere! They have plenty of water to wash off in, yet are mucky with food. The goslings cleaned themselves constantly. The ducks don't bother. Yucky yucky yucky.  I have a feeling that, by the time they are slaughter weight, I'll be very very happy to see them go.  :)

These pekins grow really fast.  Here's the before and after, in just a week's time.  Sorry for the photo quality... camera phone fun-ness.

They went from this little fuzzball

To this, in a week.

Crazy, eh?

Anyhoo, there's our duckling drama. 

Coming soon: More about the piggles, the geese, and the 8 (yes, EIGHT) guinea keets that we brought home this weekend.  ** This is the farm that doesn't end... it just grows on and on my friend...**

Hope everyone had a splendid Monday!

 

Missing chickens

Miss Blue and one of the marans have failed to go to bed in the coop for two nights now. Today was the second morning that Blue came running up to LJ when he went out to open the coop. The maran didn't turn up with her this morning, but could be heard cackling the egg song out in the woods somewhere. Our two marans are notorious egg-hiders (remember the recent stump pic, and last year's nest hidden under the ferns?). If we don't find her, and a predator doesn't pick her off, perhaps she'll turn up with a batch of maran/welsummer fluff balls. Who knows. We'll do a search tomorrow. Hopefully she's well hidden from predators, but not so well hidden that we won't be able to spot her. Wish us luck!

High-rise laying

See all the eggs in this stump? Stupid chickens. The marans and the ameraucanas are the usual culprits, though the buffs will do some creative laying now and then as well. :)

Ducks are here!

We've got baby critters coming out of our ears. More later. For now, just a cute picture of little tiny fluffy baby pekin.

Ha! I touched one!

Little piggies let me touch them last night while they ate! All it took was 5 minutes of sitting really still, and a few sweet rolls... :)

I'll write more later in the week, but for now, we have 3 barrows (castrated males) and 2 gilts (young females). They were born on 12/28.

Pigs are here!

More info soon. Gotta finish reinforcing their pig hut (the yorks did a number on it last year).

It's piggy time!

Spotted an ad for weaner pigs today for $100 ea (pretty good deal at this time of year) and the pics on the ad look like the same barn we got our pigs from last year. I would love to get this year's weaners from the same guy, as last year's were lively, healthy, and grew out really well. Looks like he has durocs available this year, and if he's still got 4 or 5 this weekend, we may try that breed instead of yorkshires like we had last year. From what I've read, durocs grow fast, exhibit good feed conversion, and the meat shows excellent marbling.

In any case, hoping to get porkers this weekend. Probably gonna do one more year just for ourselves and our friend Jim, and then we'll probably be up for selling pork next year (and one day actually raise our own).

Happy Friday Eve everyone (that's apparently what the morning news is calling Thursday... Friday eve... Love it!)