Flock Friday for September 4

Time has no meaning at present, but the all-powerful overlord CAL-N-DAR informs me it is Friday… so time for pictures of chickens and adult ducks.

(“CAL-N-DAR is a reference from the Six Colors member podcast that I’m sure none of my readers will get… but it amuses me.)

Chickens waiting for treats:

Chickens waiting for treats

Chickens with rice and strawberry treats:

Chickens with rice and strawberry treats

Koi in the pond, with some floating duck feathers and straw from the duck house:

Koi

Ducks with leafy treats:

Ducks with leafy treats

Duck butts:

Duck butts

Aerial views of the pond and ducks (did you see my post of aerial photos?):

Aerial view of pond and ducks

The first time I’ve seen one of the new ducks on an inverted pot island (I think it’s Cora):

Duck on island

Night ducks:

Night ducks

Chickens waiting for treats again:

Chickens waiting for treats

Betty by the ducklings:

Betty and ducklings

Flock Friday for August 28

Welcome to another Flock Friday!

Let’s begin with an animated GIF of ducks and fish at night:

GIF of ducks and fish at night

Ducks on the pond bank from different angles:

Ducks on the bank

Some ducks headed up the ramp to the duck house, even though the pop door is closed:

Ducks on the ramp

You can just make them out from the other cam too:

Ducks on the ramp

Ducks on the pond:

Ducks on the pond

Night ducks:

Night ducks

Chickens waiting for treats:

Chickens waiting for treats

Chickens with treats:

Chickens with treats

Finally, the ducks on the opposite side of the duck house from normal:

Ducks

Flock Friday for July 31

Some sad news this Flock Friday: a raccoon got into one of our chicken coops, and killed two of our chickens. (Don’t worry, there are no graphic pictures in this post.)

I’ve had some issues with a couple of the pop door openers recently, where they sometimes don’t open or close. I wasn’t too concerned about the one on the new chicken coop, as the run is fully enclosed, even with netting on the roof; just a small opening into the old run. I’m not sure if the raccoon got in via that hole, or over the fence and through some small gap in the roof netting, but it did.

When I did my morning rounds on Monday, I saw a dead chicken in the run: Lola, the introverted chicken (a Blue Cochin). Looking around, I saw a second dead chicken elsewhere in the run: Tilly (a Double-Laced Barnevelder).

Reviewing the cam footage, I saw the raccoon in the coop shortly after midnight on Monday:

Raccoon in chicken coop

The raccoon looked at the seven chickens roosting on top of the nesting boxes:

Raccoon in chicken coop

But went after the easy target, Lola, alone on the main roosts:

Raccoon in chicken coop

Not a nice way to go at all. I don’t know what happened with Tilly, though; I only saw the raccoon in the coop once. Perhaps she was on the outside roosts, which attracted the attention of the raccoon? Unfortunately, the run camera doesn’t record, so I couldn’t see what happened there.

I feel really bad that I hadn’t manually closed the pop door. I have been checking it each night ever since, and working with the manufacturer to diagnose its issues.

Still, it could have been much worse, if the raccoon had gone back for more.

Sorry if this sad news brings you down; it’s all part of life on the homestead, but not a pleasant aspect.

For the other chickens, life goes on. Here they are with leafy treats:

Chickens with treats

Buffy in a nesting box:

Buffy in a nesting box

As for the ducks, I’m continuing my daily duck posts for another few days, while there are frequent changes, though will probably stop sometime in the coming week, and roll the duck pictures into the Flock Friday posts from next week. Though I’m tempted to do a “daily duck” post, restricted to one picture per day, or something like that. Let me know what you think.

So for now, let’s suffice with one last picture of Bert before the new ducks joined him, stealing the koi food:

Bert with koi

More duck pictures tonight.

Flock Friday for June 26

Let’s check on Bert, the chickens, and fish.

Bert went onto the pond deck:

Bert on pond deck

Bert by pond deck

Perhaps looking for the mealworm treats and koi food I keep in a box on the deck… guarded by a resident frog:

Frog on food containers

Bert watching the ducklings:

Bert watching ducklings

By the duck house on a rainy day:

Bert by duck house

Bert watching ducklings

Bert looking over the pond:

Bert

Chickens enjoying one of their favorite treats — rice:

Chicken treats

Lettuce is ignored when there’s rice available:

Chicken treats

It’s been hot this week, so I opened all of the chicken coop vents and windows. Here you can see chickens on the roost by the front window:

Chickens with open coop window

Another day; a whole lettuce plant, tomatoes, and corn cobs for the chickens:

Chicken treats

Looking down from the pond deck at Bert and koi:

Bert and fish

Smaller koi:

Fish

Restocked duckling and chicken food, with a messy floor from straw stored above the door:

Duckling and chicken food

As you may have seen on my personal blog, a jumbo egg:

Eggs

Flock Friday for May 29

On this week’s Flock Friday, lots of pictures of chickens, a couple of GIFs, and a bonus frog.

The chickens hanging out by the old coop:

Chickens

Bert with a droplet on his bill:

Duck

Bert “helping” the koi eat their food:

Duck and fish

The chickens watching me expectantly just before I gave them their morning treats:

Chickens

An animated GIF of the chickens spinning around waiting for afternoon treats inside the new coop:

GIF of chickens

And waiting for treats again in the old coop:

Chickens

Broody chickens:

Chickens

Another broody chicken:

Chicken

You may have seen the pond deck box frog on my personal blog; here it’s on the edge of the box, just before hopping out:

Frog

Lonely duck. Hang in there Bert; new ducklings will arrive soon!

Duck

A bunch of pictures of chickens enjoying bonus water on a hot day:

Chickens

Chicken

Chickens

I also turned over some logs, revealing tasty bugs:

Chicken

Chickens

Finally, a GIF of a week on the pond:

GIF of a week on the pond

(You can see me cleaning out the duck house on the 23rd, and the heron on the 25th.)

The new ducklings should arrive sometime next week, so there may be some baby duckling pics in the next Flock Friday!

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:

Knotted rope netting

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:

Ducks

And looking to my right, the chickens waiting for me too:

Chickens

Lola (the introverted chicken) has been feeling broody in the new coop of late:

Broody chicken

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:

Pond

A koi in the corner of the pond:

Fish

Ducks:

Ducks

The ducks coming to greet me on another day:

Ducks

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:

David replacing batteries in duck pop door opener

Fish:

Fish

Ducks and fish:

Ducks and fish

A chicken on the roosts above the nesting boxes in the new coop:

Chicken

A bunch of chickens waiting for their mealworms:

Chickens

That isn’t where eggs are supposed to be laid:

Eggs

Eating in the duck house:

Duck

The duck house pop door opening, and a duck going in before it fully opens:

Ducks

Duck

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:

Duck

The ducks greeting me on the back lawn:

Ducks

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:

Ducks and fish

I put a second camera into the old coop, to watch the broody chickens:

Camera

Here’s the view from that camera, showing a broody chicken emerging from the nesting box:

Broody chicken emerging

All three of the broody chickens out to eat:

Broody chickens out

And going back into the box:

Broody chickens back in

Three broody chickens:

Three broody chickens

Me mucking out the coop, scooping the dirty bedding to dump in the compost:

Mucking out coop

Adding fresh pine shavings bedding:

Adding fresh bedding

An animated GIF of a full day in the old coop, at half hour intervals:

GIF of a day in the old coop

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:

Weeding

Paladout by the pond:

Cat by pond

Broody chickens again:

Broody chickens

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:

Eggs

The chickens in their run, watching me and the ducks outside:

Chickens

The ducks next to the pond:

Ducks

Greeting me on the lawn again:

Ducks

Following me from the chicken coops to the pond:

Ducks

You may have seen this GIF of the ducks running after me on my personal blog:

GIF of ducks

Once we reached the duck house, I gave them their treats:

Ducks

The heron landing:

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:

GIF of 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:

Ducks

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:

Ducks

Ducks and chickens

Chickens enjoying rice treats:

Chickens with rice

You may have seen this picture on my personal blog: the ducks on the temporary bridge over the pond waterfall stream:

Ducks on bridge

A GIF of the ducks leading me down the path:

Paladout walking in front of the camera by the pond:

Cat by pond

Five eggs in a nesting box in the new coop:

Five eggs in nesting box

And another five in a nesting box in the old coop; they’ve been averaging about a dozen a day recently:

Five eggs in nesting box

Martha is still being broody (and rather fluffy here):

Broody chicken

Buffy on the bin edge when I opened it to give them mealworms:

Chicken on bin edge

A GIF of a heron landing in the pond:

GIF of heron landing

A still image of the heron; such elegant birds (not!):

Heron landing

Another angle:

Heron landing

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:

GIF of heron with fish

A still of that:

Heron with fish

And a second smaller koi:

Heron with fish

The ducks are always curious, but the heron chased them when they got too close (another GIF):

GIF of heron chasing ducks

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:

Three broody chickens

Friday bonus: koi and ducks

Some bonus pictures of the fish and ducks in our pond. The koi are starting to come out of hibernation, becoming more active as the weather warms up:

Fish

Of course, when I toss out fish food, the ducks scoop it up too:

Ducks and fish

Also, spotted a few of the smaller koi:

Fish and ducks

But wait, there’s more. Those pictures were from yesterday; today, I saw a bunch of the small koi (probably a couple of years old) and some of the older ones (about seven years old) amongst the grasses below the pond deck. I tossed in some fish food, which of course attracted the ducks:

Koi and duck