For Flock Friday this week, some ducks and chickens, plus duck eggs in a new place.
Some ducks in the pond by the duck house ramp:
Others in the shallow end:
Hey, look what I found: three duck eggs in a nesting box in the duck house! I wonder if they’ll lay more there; that is the ideal place to lay:
Betty stretching a wing:
Sleepy ducks:
Ducks on the lawn, with chickens visible in the background:
Chickens enjoying apple slices:
Just a few flock pics this week.
Starting with a couple of photos of Betty in the grasses:
A slow-mo GIF from a recent @YellowCottageHomestead TikTok video of the chickens, where Domino got impatient for some rice:
Martha is being broody, but often other chickens want to lay their eggs in that box:
Hummingbirds during some surprise light snow:
Chickens and ducks. You know the drill.
A new toy for the chickens: a mealworm treat roller, a container that dispenses mealworms as they peck at it, to keep them entertained for a while:
Ducks on the pond deck:
Ducks flapping wings:
Betty:
Merida:
Chickens with the treat roller again:
Ducks amongst the flowerbeds:
Look closely, and you can see more ducks next to the gazebo:
Here are the other ones:
The two groups joining up:
Ducks zooming over the pond to get treats:
Martha is being broody again:
It’s Friday. You know what that means. This week, chickens enjoying wriggly treats, ducks in various places, and some brave (or foolish) birds.
Firstly, some chickens waiting for treats:
The treats of the day were apple peels, which are lots of fun for them — kinda like long worms, that they can grab and run off with them trailing behind:
Some ducks on the lawn, with leafy treats:
A GIF of a Steller’s jay and a scrub jay grabbing some spilled cat food in front of the cat house:
A still edition of that:
A Steller’s jay with a bit of cat food in its beak:
Taking off with the food:
Ducks following me down the path to the duck house:
Ducks eating in their house:
Here’s the fountain garden area; can you see some ducks?
A closer shot of ducks in the garden:
Welcome to another Flock Friday. Surprisingly, with no pictures of the pond this time. But plenty of ducks and chickens, and even a surprise bird.
But first, some eggs — as the weather warms up, our chickens are increasing production; averaging about 8 to 10 per day currently:
We’ve resumed giving them away to delivery folks, but are still drowning in eggs; we need to eat them faster!
The ducks have been more adventurous; here they are amongst the flowerbeds:
Almost to the field! Yes, I need to mow the grass; I’m planning to do that today, for the first time this year, if the mower cooperates.
Here they are on the back lawn:
Over by the chicken runs:
She really blends in with the walls:
Mealworm treats:
A surprise bird in the storage area of the chicken coop; it must have flown in when I opened the door. I managed to encourage it to fly out again:
This morning while having breakfast, I was surprised to see the ducks on the driveway; they turned around pretty much straight away — no worms to eat on the asphalt:
My blog is having issues with uploading images via WordPress at present, so I uploaded these via FTP instead. Shouldn’t make any difference, just a bit more work. Every time I have issues with WordPress, I’m a little more tempted to write my own blog engine. How hard could it be? (Famous last words.)
Let’s start with some sad news: after not losing any ducks for months, we seem to have lost one: we haven’t seen Cora for a few days. I haven’t seen a body either, or any sign of an attack, so it’s a bit of a mystery. I did look around to see if she’s nesting, but didn’t see any sign, and would have expected to see her occasionally. So I assume something grabbed her.
That leaves us with six females and five males. That ratio is getting worse.
Anyway, on with the pictures. Here’s the floating island with some ducks and eggs:
Ducks on the bank:
Ducks on the grass, with Rory on our evening rounds. She doesn’t go after the ducks; here, she is more interested in sniffing the deer poop than even looking at them:
Peeking at some ducks in their house:
On the pond:
Bert on the ramp into the duck house:
Duck butt:
The ducks on the lawn near the chicken runs, with some chickens visible:
The two chicken coops:
Some chickens inside the new coop:
The ducks are venturing a bit further afield; here they are in the grove of trees behind the brown gazebo, and looping around it:
This week was an exciting milestone: the ducks started laying eggs.
Firstly, a random picture of the chicken and duck feed:
Some ducks relaxing on the floating pond island:
And near the edge of the pond:
Several ducks coming to under the pond deck to get their mealworm treats, while a couple hang out on the island:
Bert and Rémy on the island:
A couple of latecomers zooming over from the far side of the pond:
Ducks on the back lawn:
They continued over the lawn to the old chicken coop, so I got some pictures with both chickens and ducks:
Heading back over the lawn to the pond:
A cam shot with Bert spreading his wings on the island, and my first glimpse of eggs; more on that later:
A bunch of pictures of the chickens:
The ducks on the pond:
Four eggs on the island:
I was hoping they would lay eggs on the island, as a safer place from predators like raccoons.
These probably aren’t fertilized, but now that at least one of the them is laying, we may get baby ducklings before long:
A bit of snow on the island:
The chickens are continuing to ramp up production, increasing the number of eggs laid each day:
It’s been an interesting week, with an ice storm, snow, and days of power cuts. The ice and snow is all gone now, and we have power again (albeit with an hour outage yesterday evening). But things still feel unstable, and I know other parts of the country aren’t faring so well.
If you missed them, check out the previous two posts on the ice storm, including pictures of the chickens and ducks.
Here’s an aerial drone shot of the pond and snowy environs; you can see the new island in the center, and the ducks nearby:
Duck prints in the snow:
Despite the days of freezing weather, the pond didn’t fully freeze at all; the closest it came was a slushy crust:
The hummingbirds were very hungry with no other food sources:
Ducks on pond bank, with melting snow:
Ducks on the island:
A cam shot of sleepy ducks on the edge of the pond, and on the island. It’s got a bit of a tilt due to water pooling on it, but the edge is still above the water line, so that’s okay:
Hungry hummingbirds again:
Ducks on the lawn:
Let’s finish with a couple of token chicken pictures:
It’s currently snowing; some snowy duck and chicken pictures towards the end of this post. Plus some pictures of the ducks using the new island, which makes me happy.
But first, a funny picture of a stretching chicken; such a long neck!
The ducks in the pond:
On the edge of the pond:
To see the new island, I moved the second camera to further back:
This is just a temporary placement, to check that the location works; at some point I’ll mount it more permanently:
The view from that camera, showing the first duck to go onto the island:
Several ducks on the island:
Chickens in the veggie garden:
Chickens with leafy treats:
In a nesting box:
Coming into the coop to get mealworm treats:
Ducks on the lawn:
Sleeping ducks:
When approaching the pond, I noticed some ducks on the island; my first non-cam photo of them using it:
Of course, as I got closer, most left it and swum towards me (swum/swam… grammar is hard):
Just Bert left on the island:
It snowed overnight. Here are some ducks on the island, and the older upturned pot islands, with snowy banks:
Ducks going after leafy treats while it snows; they don’t care about the snow:
Yes, the pond hasn’t frozen yet. It takes a while for it to cool down enough, but considering the high temperature today is about freezing level, I expect it to start to freeze in the next day or two.
Here are some ducks sleeping on the ledge at the edge, and some on the island:
Ducks are very cold-hardy, but it’s probably warmer in the water than on land right now.
The chickens aren’t such fans of the snow. They came out to get their treats this morning:
Then headed inside:
It’s quack and cluck day.
Here are the quackers beyond the pond:
And the cluckers in their run:
The ducks in and next to the pond:
The chickens are ramping back up laying eggs; they slow down in fall while molting, but are back up to about five per day at present:
I often include screenshots from the cam viewing iPad app in my Caturday posts, but don’t tend to do so for the chickens and ducks, since it’s more easy to take better photos of them. But here are some samples.
Firstly, the page that shows the new chicken coop, the duck house, and two angles of the pond:
Later in the day; you can see how the upturned boat shifts around (I have yet to see the ducks on it; I’ll remove it when I install the duck island):
Another page in the app shows the old and new chicken coops, and the old and new chicken runs. Here you can see them starting to head inside as dusk approaches:
Heading up to the roosts:
All settled:
The pop doors automatically close when it gets dark:
