Sound on! A chicken telling me all about the egg she just laid.
Chickens
Our chickens and chicken-related topics.
Flock Friday for May 15
This week: followup on Gert, news about ducklings, a duck and bird GIF, and various chicken pics. Yep, it’s Flock Friday!
As you may have seen mentioned last week, we lost our female Buff duck, Gert. We’re not sure exactly what happened, but think a raccoon or larger wildlife grabbed her. The last sighting of her alive was when both ducks swam towards the waterfall shortly before dawn, looking curious about something:
Then a few minutes later Bert swam back alone:
An hour later, when it was light, I saw Bert on the island (upturned pot), looking like he was searching for Gert:
And he kept swimming over to the waterfall area and looking around:
As described in that post, I later found her remains in the middle of some tall grasses next to the waterfall.
We are of course sad to lose another duck, though know full well that it’s a risk of free-range ducks.
We’re sad for Bert being all alone now, too.
But we certainly aren’t giving up on keeping ducks. We were hoping they would breed and make more ducklings, but now that that isn’t an option, we have ordered more. Seven ducklings, for arrival in the beginning of June.
Firstly we got a replacement female Buff, like Gert was.
We also got male and female Khaki Campbell ducks:
Male and female Rouen ducks, which are interesting for looking similar to common wild Mallards, though do not fly:
And male and female Blue Swedish ducks:
(Click those links to learn more about each, if interested.)
Hopefully we’ll have a better survival rate this time! The duck house I built is sized for four adult ducks, but since the ducks prefer to live outside, it’ll be plenty big enough for seven ducklings.
Of course, in preparation for ducklings again I’ll need to close up the duck house and convert it back to a duckling nursery, but I’ve noticed that Bert doesn’t go in the duck house to eat anyway; he seems to get plenty to eat from free-ranging. I have started to hand-feed him in the mornings, instead of giving him mealworm treats; perhaps not as tasty, but better for him.
So, look forward to lots of cute duckling pics in future flock updates!
Anyway, back to the pictures. It’s getting warmer, so I opened some of the chicken coop vents:
I picked up some supplies at the feed store (after getting bee nucs), including straw and chick feed for the ducklings, chicken food, flock block, and chicken bedding. So the storage area of the new coop is rather crowded at present:
Bert wandering around the edge of the flowerbeds:
Bert visiting the chickens:
As mentioned, I’m hand-feeding him in the mornings now:
An animated GIF of Bert going onto the pond island and flapping his wings, while birds swoop over the pond to drink:
A still of Bert flapping his wings:
Broody Kiwi and Martha:
Chickens:
Eggs in a nesting box:
Flock Friday for May 8
This week on Flock Friday, replacing the chicken run roof netting, and a bunch of pictures of ducks, chickens, and fish.
The new chicken run is fully enclosed. When I originally built it, I used lightweight netting on the roof, but it tended to collapse under the weight of snow. I had a plan to replace it with welded wire fencing, though that would have been difficult and expensive. Then a comment on the blog inspired me to use knotted rope netting instead, which I did last weekend. A 25×50’ roll of 2”-spaced knotted rope netting was perfect to cover the run:
Hopefully that’ll cope with snow much better. We’ll see next winter!
On to the usual pictures. Here are the ducks coming to greet me next to the old chicken coop:
And looking to my right, the chickens waiting for me too:
Lola (the introverted chicken) has been feeling broody in the new coop of late:
Standing at the back of the pond, looking through the tree branches towards the duck house and deck. You can see the ducks below the deck:
A koi in the corner of the pond:
Ducks:
The ducks coming to greet me on another day:
Did you see the video of them quacking at me?
The pop door on the duck house has been having issues over the last few days, not closing at night. Here’s me replacing the batteries in the door opener:
Fish:
Ducks and fish:
A chicken on the roosts above the nesting boxes in the new coop:
A bunch of chickens waiting for their mealworms:
That isn’t where eggs are supposed to be laid:
Eating in the duck house:
The duck house pop door opening, and a duck going in before it fully opens:
Flock Friday for May 1
For Flock Friday this week, chickens and ducks, of course, plus a bathing bird, and a fake bird.
Chickens on the potato planters in the veggie garden. Enjoy it while you can, girls; you’ll be evicted soon, when we’re ready to start planting:
Ducks on the back lawn:
An animated GIF of a scrub jay having a bath in the stream:
I shared a picture of the chickens with drone frames in my recent bee post, with a followup in the subsequent post; here are a couple more photos of them not sure about the frames, before getting stuck in:
A crow by the cat house:
To help discourage visits by the heron, I added a fake one on the edge of the pond:
The ducks under the pond deck:
A GIF of the chickens eating mealworms in the new coop:
Third beehive inspection of 2020
Another inspection of the beehives, following up to last week.
Firstly, a peek at the bottom of the feeder removed last week, now with fewer bees on it:
A closer look; you can see a queen cup, and some bees further down, which have since departed:
We’ll scrape that comb off before using the feeder again. (If we do; we weren’t entirely satisfied with them, as the sugar syrup tended to get moldy, and bees would find their way around the screen and drown.)
On to the inspection. Here’s the yellow hive, with the new Flow super:
The inspection cloth on top to keep the bees calmer, and the rack ready to receive a removed frame. The grid on the right is the queen excluder, which prevents the queen from laying in the Flow honey super:
A nice frame of honey and worker brood; a typical pattern for frames near the edge:
A frame with a bunch of honey:
A brood frame covered in bees:
Another honey and brood frame:
Honey frame:
We didn’t see the queen in the yellow hive, though saw proof that she had been laying, which was good enough.
Moving on to the purple hive, here’s a frame of drone brood that we noticed last week:
We spotted the queen (the large non-stripy bee near the edge on the left, which is the bottom of the frame):
We removed the three drone frames:
And brushed the bees off them:
We set those drone frames aside, to let the remaining bees evacuate:
We replaced those frames with ones we had stored in our shop freezer over winter (and had since defrosted), that included some honey.
Some bees hanging out on Jenn’s suit:
This morning, I gave those drone frames to our chickens to enjoy; they’ll eat the unhatched drones and clean off the comb. We need to destroy the drone cells before using these frames again, otherwise they’d encourage laying more drones:
We also did mite treatments on the purple and orange hives. The orange hive is still looking weak, but surviving so far, so we didn’t disturb it too much.
We’ve completed the mite treatments now, so probably don’t need to inspect again for a couple of weeks, though need to keep an eye on the hives to give the purple hive more space if they need it, to prevent swarming. The yellow hive looks like they’re considering swarming, but they have plenty of space with the Flow super, so hopefully they won’t.
Flock Friday for April 24
For this week’s flock update: funny ducks, broody chickens, mucking out the coop, chasing the heron.
Gert peeking at me from under the pond deck:
The ducks greeting me on the back lawn:
A view from the pond deck of the ducks and fish; I’m now feeding them from there on evening rounds, since it’s easier to see the fish from there. By the duck house is closer to the water, but the more acute viewing angle plus the angle of the sun reflecting off the water makes it harder to see into the pond:
I put a second camera into the old coop, to watch the broody chickens:
Here’s the view from that camera, showing a broody chicken emerging from the nesting box:
All three of the broody chickens out to eat:
And going back into the box:
Three broody chickens:
Me mucking out the coop, scooping the dirty bedding to dump in the compost:
Adding fresh pine shavings bedding:
An animated GIF of a full day in the old coop, at half hour intervals:
Me hand-weeding by the pond. I spray weeds around the property, but don’t want to spray where the ducks frequent, so every day on my morning rounds I pull a few weeds, to keep it somewhat under control:
Paladout by the pond:
Broody chickens again:
10 eggs in a nesting box; we’re currently averaging about a dozen a day, usually split between one box in each coop. Chickens like to lay in the same box as other chickens lay, so whichever box the first chicken lays in, the others also use. Usually the same one every day, but sometimes they change:
The chickens in their run, watching me and the ducks outside:
The ducks next to the pond:
Greeting me on the lawn again:
Following me from the chicken coops to the pond:
You may have seen this GIF of the ducks running after me on my personal blog:
Once we reached the duck house, I gave them their treats:
The heron landing:
I went out there to chase it off, before it could eat more of our fish; here’s a GIF of the heron taking off:
Just now, we saw the ducks on the driveway next to the veggie garden; the furthest we’ve seen them from the pond:
Flock Friday for April 17
For this week’s Flock Friday, ducks being cute, chickens being broody, and a heron eating a couple of our fish (grrr).
The ducks greeting me by the chicken coop again:
Chickens enjoying rice treats:
You may have seen this picture on my personal blog: the ducks on the temporary bridge over the pond waterfall stream:
A GIF of the ducks leading me down the path:
Paladout walking in front of the camera by the pond:
Five eggs in a nesting box in the new coop:
And another five in a nesting box in the old coop; they’ve been averaging about a dozen a day recently:
Martha is still being broody (and rather fluffy here):
Buffy on the bin edge when I opened it to give them mealworms:
A GIF of a heron landing in the pond:
A still image of the heron; such elegant birds (not!):
Another angle:
While the heron is interesting, it isn’t welcome, as it feeds on frogs and fish. This week, the heron caught two of our smallish fish.
Here’s a GIF of the heron catching a koi, I’d guess at least a couple of years old:
A still of that:
And a second smaller koi:
The ducks are always curious, but the heron chased them when they got too close (another GIF):
When I saw the heron, I went out there to chase it off, but all of that was in less than five minutes.
Finally, there are now three broody chickens, all trying to fit in the same box:
Flock Friday for April 10
This week, we start with a GIF of frisky ducks, then a bunch more duck pictures, some token chicken pics, and finish with some misty ducks.
The aforementioned GIF (might take a minute to load):
A frame of that GIF:
Some more pictures of the ducks:
An aerial shot of the pond and ducks (see yesterday’s post for more):
Misty ducks:
Chickens enjoying rice treats:
Back to the ducks, coming to see me by the chicken coop:
A duck feather:
Some early morning pictures of the misty pond and ducks:
The ducks walking past the camera:
Too many duck pictures? They’re just such fun. I should try to get more pictures of the chickens, though.
Flock Friday for April 3
This week, Rory with the ducks, broody chickens, and a new camera view.
I posted a similar (but different) picture to this one, of the ducks and Rory, on my personal blog:
The ducks on the back lawn, with their heads in the grass, looking for tasty bugs:
By the chicken run:
Two broody chickens in a nesting box:
Gert on the “island” pot in the pond at night:
You probably saw these two pictures of the ducks and Rory on my personal blog:
I moved the mobile cam from by the cat house to the (currently off) waterfall area of the pond:
A view of the pond and ducks from that camera:
Gert with her head in the ground:
Gert was curious about the camera:
And knocked it over:
So I moved the camera to a better location, closer to the pond deck:
A view from there; you can see the ducks hanging out below the pond deck, where they’ve been spending a fair bit of time:
I suspect Gert may be considering that location for laying eggs, though haven’t found any more yet.
Swimming past the camera:
Ducks eating treats:
Gert:
Bert:
Gert below the pond deck again, and Bert walking past the camera:
Both ducks below the pond deck, and Paladout walking by:
The chickens in the old coop:
Broody chickens again (still):
A wider view of the broody chickens and others:
The ducks walking by:
Chickens roosting on potato planters:
The ducks below the pond deck again:
Ducks and a bird:
Chickens chasing Camilla to get some apple peel
I gave the chickens some apple peel (and kale) as a treat. Camilla managed to grab a big chunk, and was chased around the veggie garden and chicken runs by the other chickens, who wanted to snag a piece.