Hah. Well that stinks. How much space did you give them? You could always try out full sized ducks unless you have something planned for their space already. If I had room I would have a couple flocks. One strictly for eggs and one for meat. Maybe try muscovy or pekin. I think appleyards are a good dual purpose breed that I'd also be interested in. Ducks are so hardly and keep laying year round ( save molts or natural rest periods), I really don't see myself keeping chickens in the future.
I should first point out that I don’t mean to sound so callous about it, but this really was a small flock of culls. They had plenty of room, including time to free range, which they’ve been doing the past few weeks. They typically hung out around our goats or right close to our house. It was funny because they would just sit and chill along the sidewalk; for some reason past flocks have as well. Kinda weird, kinda funny. Anyhow, yeah this will just launch me into deciding what larger breed I want to get. Like @bewildered and I have talked about before, I’d really like to get a large heritage breed with solid bloodlines and help preserve a species. In other news, I’ll be looking at getting a new barn for our goats next year. I’m also on the breeder’s list for a couple new ones next year. She just added me, figuring I’d want them. She wasn’t wrong.
@walt nice! What kind of goats are you on the list for? I'm hoping to have some fertile eggs to sell a few day olds in the spring. Not a ton, just a clutch or so to help defray some feed costs. Well, the eggs certainly cover the feed. Let's say water costs. While trying to sell these extra drakes I got several inquiries about females and ducklings so I think I could sell a few. I'll have to keep the welsh Harlequins seperate To be sure I'm only hatching out our WHs. At this point I can't tell the difference between their eggs. One of the new girls is throwing an occasional blue-green egg with a glossy shell but it isn't regular.
Nigerian Dwarves. I have three wethers ( neutered bucks ) now and they’re like three dogs. Absolutely loving and friendly boys. Spoiled, really. The breeder has a new buck for stud and is getting beautiful Holstein cow colored kids. I saw this years’ and wanted them. I have all Winter to plan and scheme, so will have to see what critical heritage breed waterfowl are nearer to me. Barring that, I’ll be looking for some deep keeled, show quality Rouens. Those fuckers won’t be flying anywhere.
How do you folks manage to keep ducks and chickens, particularly free range, with a massive loss to coyotes and fox? We have both predators here and it’s put an end to raising these birds by a few of my neighbors. Just curious.
A few answers. I don't free range mine because I don't have the space. I don't want my whole backyard shitted up. Some people accept losses depending on how mild predation is. If you only have to worry about hawks and give your birds places to hide, you'll have a few losses seasonally but your flock will generally be good about watching the skies and hiding when needed. If you have heavy predation, hot wires can help tremendously. That may or may not help, depending on your set up and severity of predators. Livestock guardian dogs are other guard animals are sometimes used. Coops should always be fort Knox or eventually your flock will be decimated. The difficulty of keeping a free range flock in areas with lots of predators is a reason why some people simply don't free range, or do supervised ranging while other times keeping them locked up in a predator proof enclosure.
There’s always going to be predation loss to some degree, eventually. Still, it’s pretty rare and we live on the edge of the forest. Our chickens are allowed out later in the day and only for a short time before they head in to roost. They have a huge fenced in area, so why do I let them free range some? I encourage them to scratch around under the apple trees so I don’t have to trim around them. Additionally they are excellent at lest control. Same for the ducks. As I said in a previous post, more of them than not ours stay close to the house. They get bugs from the garden and grubs from the lawn. Our turkeys though? No bueno. This new flock I don’t trust to stay close by. I’ve actually had a previous flock disappear with the local wild turkeys and only a few returned. So as impressive as a strutting tom is on the lawn, they’re not allowed to free range. Really the biggest threat to the birds is the county road that runs between our two properties. And I’ve only lost a few birds to dipshits that see them but won’t slow down. Bewildered pretty much covered the rest. If you take some simple measures, you can limit loss to predation to almost none, even allowing them to free range once in awhile.
Hi all - long time lurker of this thread, first time poster. I love reading information about homesteading, and I came across this post on facebook about preserving fresh eggs with lime. When I read it, I immediately thought of @bewildered and shared it with her, who then suggested I share it in the thread. So here you go! https://www.facebook.com/SolaceFarmer/posts/3370247849678070 You'll have to share how it works out!
That’s a new one to me! I shared it to the self-reliance group associated with my “official “ Facebook page.
I LOVE that info. Thanks for sharing. I was able to sell every new egg. I have my oldest left , didn't want to chance someone getting a bad egg. I think I have pickling lime in the garage, but I should do this with new eggs for maximum freshness. There are maybe 20 eggs left in the bowl and I know a few are bad. With 6 per quiche plus brownies I can get through that number in a few days.
Today was "Dirty Jobs" day, some of which are thankfully rare jobs. I fired up our outdoor wood burner, cleaned out the chicken coop, the goat barn, and trimmed the turkey wings. Thanks to Covid, we had some N-95 masks around which spared me breathing in all the dust. That shit can kill you, it did my neighbor who worked on a chicken farm in her younger years. SO always wear your mask kids.
Yeah. Mice got into a bag of grass seed I forgot to put in a sealed bucket... grass seed and mouse shit EVERYWHERE in the shed. Next weekend is time to pull it all out, leaf blow all the shit out (literally), spray some disinfectant everywhere, throw down some fresh rodent killer, and then take a silkwood shower. Sure glad I have a couple of new full face respirators at the ready.
Does anybody use a Zero Turn mower in their yard? This is my first season with one. It's been great. I can knock out mowing the yard part quickly, and then jump over in the field to keep that managed. But, in the past, I've always used the bagging attachment for old lawn tractor this time of year. When it's heavy, I'll rake leaves and remove piles the old fashioned way, but I only do that once, maybe twice a season. The rest of the time, I get the clippings and leaves and pine straw with the bagger. My ZTR doesn't have a bagger. But, I can add a mulching kit. Right now, it'll just scatter chopped leaves everywhere. Has anybody used a mulch kit? Does it chop it fine enough to look tidy? It seems like a bit of effort to put on and off. I won't be able to keep it on in the spring & summer because the field grass would be too thick.
It should, you may have to slow down to get your desired results. My stepdad has an agrifab vacuum attached to his ZT, don't know if that is an option you want to consider. I had a vacuum on my old lawn tractor and my yard was spotless, but when it finally shit the bed, I just went to mulching with the lawn tractor. I'd rather deal with a slightly less tidy yard in the fall and let that leaf mulch nourish the the yard. Raking is too much work to remove something that could do the yard some good.
Damned ducks hid their eggs in the mud. I found them totally by chance. My irrigation repair guy keeps a couple ducks more as pets than anything but says he hasn't seen a single egg. From pics I can see he has at least 1 female. Look harder, man...
I need to start letting the chickens out a little later I think. Every morning around 9-9:30 one of the local hawks come divebombing in an attempt to get breakfast. Unfortunately for him, there's a lot of brush and stuff for the chickens to hide in, so it can't get to them. Then the roosters go nuts, alerting me, and I come out and shoo it away. I get why shooting them is a federal offense, but I also get why someone would shoot them now and then. This thing is making a daily habit of this. By leaving them in a while longer, or for the whole day, it may stop coming back though. At least for a while.
How big is the area you let them range? I've heard putting a few suspended fishline or wire or whatever around can deter them. Some people do a whole grid but I wouldn't do that unless you have a serious hawk problem. Unless super desperate hawks won't risk an injury and don't like diving into too small an area for prey.
I don’t remember the size but it’s huge. Off hand I’d say maybe 60’ x 20’, maybe more since it’s not square. I’m familiar with the fishing line trick but I need to be able to get to the door to lock them in and whatever else. That’s why I left several areas of heavy brush. Even this time of year it protects them from raptors. And I always figure I’ll lose a couple eventually. It’s the price ya pay to live in the country. I just do my best to keep it to a minimum.