The number of animals at our house had gone down recently. We lost several rabbits and we lost three of our dogs, our whippet "Brio", our Beagle "Honey" and our Chinese Crested "Faline". They will all get a post for themselves some time soon.
The new life that we are surrounded by at the moment are many ducklings of different colors. 6 of our duck hens have hatched ducklings already. A white Runner Duck had 1 duckling, a black/white Swedish/Mallard cross had 8, our purebred Mallard, Rosie, had 4, one of our other Mallards had 1, one of our dilute Mallards had 8 and another one of our dilute Mallard hens had 18 ducklings. We have one more mama duck hatching ducklings this week.
They are great fun to watch as they play in their pools, chase bugs, eat a few greens from our garden and pile up in a big fluffy ball when resting.
We started out with very few ducks as pets 9 years ago, 2 Rouen females, followed the year after that with two Cayugas, a drake and a hen. In our third year we acquired a few new breeds, a domestic Mallard (Rosie), two Indian runners (one blue and one chocolate), a Welsh Harlequin, a Buff and a Khaki Campbell, all hens.
My personal favorites were the Mallard and the Indian Runners, as both laid lots of tasty eggs and also would hatch their eggs (surprisingly many breeds of ducks don't, especially the heavier meat breeds rarely do).
So we started crossing these breeds with Blue/Black Swedish and with Cayugas to increase size and introduce more colors (black and blue with and without white markings). We got ducks that have the easy-going temperament and great egg-laying ability of the domestic mallard with a little more size and a slightly different body type coming from the Runners. This makes them unlikely to fly over any fence higher than 3 feet without having to clip wings. We also focused on animals with good temperament and eliminated a few males that were too aggressive with the females or each other.
For the first time this year we have several ducklings that look like they will be chocolate in color as adults. We may also have a few more double dilutes that look almost white.
We raise all our ducks on pasture and organic grain to produce the healthiest eggs possible and guarantee the best quality of life for our animals.
We still have one of our first Rouen ducks, Annie, who is now almost 8 years old.
We sometimes have older females or younger male ducks available for pet homes. Some of them have been placed with people who have organic farms with ponds where they keep the ponds from being overgrown with weeds and algae. Some are helping keep organic orchards free from bugs.
We have ducklings available for egg-laying and as pets and will give newcomers to ducks lots of information to get off to a great start with them.
My next post will be about whippets, including the ones that are not born yet.
Photos of all our ducks are on our "Duck" page.
The new life that we are surrounded by at the moment are many ducklings of different colors. 6 of our duck hens have hatched ducklings already. A white Runner Duck had 1 duckling, a black/white Swedish/Mallard cross had 8, our purebred Mallard, Rosie, had 4, one of our other Mallards had 1, one of our dilute Mallards had 8 and another one of our dilute Mallard hens had 18 ducklings. We have one more mama duck hatching ducklings this week.
They are great fun to watch as they play in their pools, chase bugs, eat a few greens from our garden and pile up in a big fluffy ball when resting.
We started out with very few ducks as pets 9 years ago, 2 Rouen females, followed the year after that with two Cayugas, a drake and a hen. In our third year we acquired a few new breeds, a domestic Mallard (Rosie), two Indian runners (one blue and one chocolate), a Welsh Harlequin, a Buff and a Khaki Campbell, all hens.
My personal favorites were the Mallard and the Indian Runners, as both laid lots of tasty eggs and also would hatch their eggs (surprisingly many breeds of ducks don't, especially the heavier meat breeds rarely do).
So we started crossing these breeds with Blue/Black Swedish and with Cayugas to increase size and introduce more colors (black and blue with and without white markings). We got ducks that have the easy-going temperament and great egg-laying ability of the domestic mallard with a little more size and a slightly different body type coming from the Runners. This makes them unlikely to fly over any fence higher than 3 feet without having to clip wings. We also focused on animals with good temperament and eliminated a few males that were too aggressive with the females or each other.
For the first time this year we have several ducklings that look like they will be chocolate in color as adults. We may also have a few more double dilutes that look almost white.
We raise all our ducks on pasture and organic grain to produce the healthiest eggs possible and guarantee the best quality of life for our animals.
We still have one of our first Rouen ducks, Annie, who is now almost 8 years old.
We sometimes have older females or younger male ducks available for pet homes. Some of them have been placed with people who have organic farms with ponds where they keep the ponds from being overgrown with weeds and algae. Some are helping keep organic orchards free from bugs.
We have ducklings available for egg-laying and as pets and will give newcomers to ducks lots of information to get off to a great start with them.
My next post will be about whippets, including the ones that are not born yet.
Photos of all our ducks are on our "Duck" page.