GIF

Flock Friday for June 12

This past week has been exciting with the baby ducklings, but I also got a bunch of pictures of the adult duck, Bert, and the chickens.

This post is about the adults, but let’s start with a check in on the ducklings; here’s them a week ago:

Ducklings

And yesterday; look how much they’ve grown already:

Ducklings

A picture of the ducklings and Bert:

Ducklings and duck

I feed him his breakfast in this spot, as the food sinks to the bottom, and there’s a shallow ledge there, as more visible in the previous picture, when the water level was lower; it’s easer for him to eat from the water than on land:

Duck

Some pictures of the chickens while I was installing the compost bins:

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens and duck:

Chickens and duck

While I was refilling the feeder, Bert joined me:

Duck

Duck and chickens

Duck and chickens

Following me down the path to the duck house:

Duck

Duck

Breakfast next to the duck house:

Duck

An animated GIF of a heron taking off, when I went out there to chase it:

GIF of heron

Bert drinking water accumulated in the paint tray that will be used by the ducklings next week:

Duck

He went up the ramp and tapped on the pop door. Sorry, that’ll stay closed for several more weeks, until the ducklings are old enough to go into the pond (at about 8 weeks old):

Duck

Ducklings and duck

Duck

Eating again:

Duck

A bunch of pictures of the chickens:

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

I moved the log, and they enjoyed some tasty worms underneath:

Chickens

A favorite dust bath spot under the pop door ramp:

Chickens

Another day, I offered fun apple peel treats:

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Bert was watching with interest outside the chicken run (I did offer some apple peel to him, but he didn’t want it):

Duck

Ducklings day 5

Today in the duck house, I captured some interesting EcoGlow interactions, plus added some straw bedding.

Here’s a shot from the duck house cam showing the ducklings actually using the EcoGlow heater for a substantial amount of time; the first time I’ve seen that. Maybe that means it was too high before, and they’ve grown into it? The red light helps keep them more calm.

Ducklings under EcoGlow

An animated GIF of a duckling drinking, going under the EcoGlow, then jumping on top of it:

GIF of ducklings

A shot of the duckling on the EcoGlow:

Duckling on EcoGlow

The usual picture of the ducklings when I first opened the door this morning (the light is still red, but the sunlight coming in the open door overwhelms that):

Ducklings

Definitely time for some bedding. I just added a thin partial layer of straw bedding for now (the ducklings hid in the back nesting box while I added that):

Added some bedding

Later I will add more, and in due course will remove the shelf liner layer from the floor, once they’re more steady on their feet.

The ducklings were very curious about the straw:

Ducklings exploring

Ducklings

Ducklings

Ducklings

Ducklings

Afternoon visit:

Ducklings

Cutely watching me:

Ducklings

Ducklings day 3

Some trauma for day 3: today we removed the leg bands from the male ducklings (the females didn’t have bands).

Here are the ducklings when I first arrived in the morning:

Ducklings

An animated GIF of synchronized duckling drinking:

GIF of ducklings drinking

A couple of pictures around noon, after removing their leg bands; they were feeling rather hesitant about us after that:

Ducklings

Ducklings

And some afternoon rounds pictures:

Ducklings

A view from a nesting box:

Ducklings

Still avoiding me (they’ll get over it, especially once I introduce treats):

Ducklings

Cat update for week ending May 30

On this week’s Caturday, camera replacement, Poppa, Rory cameo, and sunshine.

The camera inside the cat house stopped recording, so I slid open the rarely-opened maintenance door to investigate it:

Opened cat house

I couldn’t get it to work, so I swapped the cat house camera for the spare one that was previously in the old chicken coop. Here’s a closer look at the camera enclosure:

Cat house camera

The cat house cam is mounted upside down on the ceiling, so here’s the view just after replacing it:

Cat house cam upside down

I then told the camera to rotate the view 180°. Here’s a cat looking at the cam:

Cat looking at cam

It’s hard to tell, since the inside is symmetrical, but that picture is actually horizontally mirrored; I forgot that I also needed to un-mirror it to get the correct orientation.

Here’s Porcini and Pommie in the cabins, visited by Poppa:

Porcini, Pommie, Poppa

After a while, Pommie left to go eat or something, and Poppa went into her cabin. Here’s Pommie returning to find it occupied:

Porcini, Pommie, Poppa

A few minutes later, Poppa emerged; he’s such a big boy:

Poppa

On evening rounds, Rory spotted Paladout on the path to the duck house:

Rory watching Paladout

Hard to see in that picture; here’s a closer look at Paladout:

Paladout

Two cats under our car:

Two cats under car

The sun shining down the breezeway, with a cat silhouette:

Breezeway

Pepper on her nest in the shop:

Pepper

An animated GIF of Poppy, Bella, and Porcini playing:

GIF of Poppy, Bella, Porcini

Poppy, Bella, Porcini:

Poppy, Bella, Porcini

Pommie oozing out of a cabin on a hot day:

Pommie

Poppy inside:

Poppy

Porcini relaxing in the shade under the bird feeders on a sunny day:

Porcini

Closer:

Porcini

Poppy and Porcini:

Poppy and Porcini

Too hot to be inside last night; Spud and Poppy in front of the cat house:

Spud and Poppy

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

Chickens

Chicken

Chickens

I also turned over some logs, revealing tasty bugs:

Chicken

Chickens

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!

Cat update for week ending May 23

This week, a number of animated GIFs, including a 30-second summary of the last week inside the cat house, and more.

Let’s start with a GIF of Bella chasing and catching a bug in the feeder:

Bella chasing bug

And a GIF of her playing in the cat house:

Bella playing

A still of that:

Playful cat

Cats in cabins:

Cats in cabins

Poppa and Pommie in the breezeway:

Poppa and Pommie in breezeway

Three cats in the cat house:

Three cats in cat house

A screenshot of my cams app, showing four cats:

Screenshot of four cats

Refilling the cat food:

Refilling the cat food

Raccoon:

Raccoon

A few minutes later, the raccoon must have got close to the cabins, as Pommie emerged from a cabin and hissed before retreating, though I didn’t see the raccoon on the camera:

Cat hissing

Three cats inside:

Three cats inside

A screenshot my iPhone showing several cams:

Screenshot of cams

Cat house snuggles:

Cat house snuggles

Cat house snuggles

Another day, a raccoon nabbed a bit of leftover food:

Raccoon

And a possum showed up, too late:

Possum

Up close and personal:

Possum

A GIF of the possum going inside the cat house with Porcini inside; fortunately it left without incident:

Possum inside cat house

Porcini reaction GIF:

Porcini

Poppy playing:

Playing

Playing

A GIF of Pommie and Porcini in the cabins, and Spud joining them and going into Porcini’s cabin:

Cabins

Three cats:

Three cats

A sped-up GIF of Poppa arriving at the cabins with Porcini and Pommie, and hanging out for five minutes; it continues to amaze me how much they accept him:

Poppa

Pansy in the back of the shop:

Pansy

Three cats for breakfast:

Three cats

Finally, a special GIF summarizing the last week inside the cat house:

Week inside cat house

Flock Friday for May 22

This week, GIFs of birds swooping, chickens fighting, and the duck flapping his wings, plus more pictures.

Here’s an animated GIF of a bird swooping over the pond; I think this is a female red-winged blackbird:

GIF of bird

A still from that; nice wingspan:

Bird

Our remaining duck, Bert, in the pond:

Duck

And on the bank (which is rather weedy at present):

Duck

A GIF of a male red-winged blackbird swooping over a heron, no doubt telling it to move along:

GIF of bird

GIF of male and female red-winged blackbirds by the duck house and over the pond, watched by Bert:

GIF of birds

A still of that:

Two birds

Broody chickens:

Broody chickens

The chickens can get feisty sometimes; here’s a GIF of a chicken fight; fascinating how they fluff up their feathers:

GIF of chicken fight

Last GIF, of Bert standing on the “island” and flapping his wings:

GIF of duck

The pond is very full at present, with all of the rain recently, so the island is slightly below the surface. Which is fine with him; easier to get onto it. Here he’s starting to flap:

Duck

And just standing on it:

Duck

Notice that the duck house door is closed now; I noticed that he wasn’t going in anyway. I feed him next to it in the mornings, as previously mentioned. I’ll probably clean out the duck house this weekend, in preparation for new ducklings in just over a week. Looking forward to that!

Let’s finish up with a couple of chicken pictures. All eyes on me as they wait for treats:

Chickens waiting for treats

No eyes on me after I toss out the treats:

Chickens eating treats

Potato planters prep and irrigation

Yesterday we started the potato planters. I added some scoria and dirt to the planter frames, Jenn planted the seed potatoes, and I added new irrigation for them.

Here is a base of scoria (for drainage) and a wheelbarrow load of very damp dirt (3-way mix):

Scoria and dirt

Previously we had a soaker hose for the potato planters, but that didn’t do a very good job of delivering water to the plants (and not all around them). So I added better irrigation, starting with a convoluted pipe off the tap of the nearby bed:

Irrigation piping

The underground pipe to that tap actually goes right by the potato planters, complete with an expansion point, so one day I might add a separate tap for the potato planters, instead of splitting off this bed. But I decided to take this approach for now.

Since I mentioned that, a minor digression: here’s an old picture from 2014 showing that portion of the veggie garden pipes; the potato planters are just beyond my toolbox:

Veggie garden pipes

Another old picture, showing the aforementioned pipe expansion points:

Pipe expansion point

One day I should do a post with plumbing projects like this one from before I started this blog.

Anyway, back to present day.

The irrigation pipe goes behind the potato planters, with emitter leads for each planter, so they can be moved as more dirt is added:

Potato planters with irrigation

I used a new kind of emitter that has a wider coverage than the sprinkler kind I’ve previously used, so one emitter gives even coverage of the whole thing:

Potato planter with irrigation

Hey why not… here’s a GIF edition of that picture, showing it working:

GIF of irrigation emitter

Here’s a wider view of the planters and piping:

Potato planters with irrigation

As the potatoes grow upwards, we’ll add more dirt and retaining boards, resulting in several layers of spuds.

Cat update for week ending May 16

This week, a couple of cam screenshots (showing all five cats), a couple of GIFs (showing Poppa at the cabins, and a day inside the house), and more for your weekly Caturday.

Poppy drinking, Porcini watching:

Porcini and Poppy

Pommie oozing out of a cabin:

Cat in cabin

A screenshot of my iPad cam app (with the outside cam offline), showing all five of the cats: one in a cabin, three in the house, and one eating:

Five cats

Another screenshot of all five, this time two in the cabins, one in the house, and two eating:

Five cats

Porcini watching a bird:

Porcini

An animated GIF of the male alien we call Poppa visiting Pommie at the cabins, and even going inside the other cabin. I continue to be amazed how well they get along:

GIF of cabins

Another GIF, this time a fast-paced summary of a day inside the cat house:

GIF inside house

So much cuteness!

A couple of snuggles from that:

Snuggles

Snuggles

Finally, Porcini watching me from the swimming pool area:

Porcini in the pool area

Porcini in the pool area

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:

Two ducks

Then a few minutes later Bert swam back alone:

One duck

An hour later, when it was light, I saw Bert on the island (upturned pot), looking like he was searching for Gert:

Duck on island

And he kept swimming over to the waterfall area and looking around:

Duck

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:

Khaki Campbell ducks

Male and female Rouen ducks, which are interesting for looking similar to common wild Mallards, though do not fly:

Rouen ducks

And male and female Blue Swedish ducks:

Blue Swedish duck

(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:

Coop vents open

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:

Crowded storage area

Bert wandering around the edge of the flowerbeds:

Duck

Bert visiting the chickens:

Duck and chickens

As mentioned, I’m hand-feeding him in the mornings now:

Duck

An animated GIF of Bert going onto the pond island and flapping his wings, while birds swoop over the pond to drink:

GIF of duck and birds

A still of Bert flapping his wings:

Duck on island

Broody Kiwi and Martha:

Broody chickens

Chickens:

Chickens

Eggs in a nesting box:

Eggs