Chickens, Eggs, and Ducks?!

As I haven’t posted any updates in a couple of months, you’ll be glad to hear that all six of our chickens are still alive and well. And surprise!! We added four ducklings to the flock a while back as well!

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Welcome to the homestead Dana, Dena, Dina, and Donna! We hope you’re all females. Or we might exchange you. Just kidding. Maybe. We’ll see.

For the first week (or two?) with the ducklings we kept them in a small fenced area under the brooder outside, and then at night we would move them into the brooder to keep them safe from predators. We hear coyotes most nights! Then we fenced off a portion of the chicken area and moved them into their new home. We opted out of putting them with the chickens right away to avoid any spats. It worked out really well! When the ducklings got most of their feathers we opened up their fenced area and they all began cohabiting the area pretty well straight away.

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In other news, our chicks are now officially laying hens!! We’ve already gotten a plethora, and are excited to start finding duck eggs as well. We were also really excited to see that our easter egger Harriett is laying blue/green eggs! So fun to see the spot of color.

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We actually hadn’t been checking for eggs as we thought they were still too young to be producing. One morning MIL says she’s got something to show me, and brings me out to the coop. Evelyn was sitting atop FOURTEEN eggs. Gladys was sticking nearby and pecking at Evelyn whenever I pushed her a little to the side to see how many she was sitting on. Pulling them out from under her was a little heart wrenching, but after looking a little sad, Evelyn got right back to normal!