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: