Chicks and Ducklings. In the mail!
John and the Matriarch want duck for Christmas dinner. But I bought a few extra so I could breed them too. Sadly two of the extra were dead on arrival. So we have four Orpington ducks. The chickens are a selection of cold-hardy layers. Next week the meat chickens come. By then the glass house will be empty and the chicks will be raised in there. These ones are on the verandah, in the meantime, in an enormous horse trough with a heating lamp, so they can take advantage of the lovely warm sunny days.
My friend and I shifted the old chooks and their ark over to the the Barn Across the Way. The lady who rents the house close to the barn is keeping an eye on them for me. She had a number of visiting children and they streamed out of the house like bright giggling ribbons caught in a summer breeze and proceeded to name all the chooks. 
When children become involved with the process of their food I feel a deep sense of rightness. One little girl looked at the chooks and then looked back up. Can I have Spoiled eggs for lunch? She said.
I put the feeder pigs together yesterday, perfumed and coiffed and initially they were just fine, but later it all fell apart. The fighting was terrible. Blood was shed. Just between the Red and Number Three. (see! even when they have No names they have names). This big red fella would not give up, so after a number of hours, I gave up and shut the gates again. They were heaving, ill, exhausted. Hanging on each other like old boxers. So now Number Three has company. And The Big Red bad tempered one, who is growing at an astronomical rate, is on the other side of the gate by himself in his room thinking about how he could have Done Better.
So all is quiet again. I have room enough to raise them side by side. If they do not settle down that is what I will do. No problem really.
It was hot yesterday, in the high 80’s. And we basked in it. Sheila and Poppy were basking a little too much so I put the hose in the wallow so they could get out the suntan lotion. Mud. So clever. Sheila was straight in there, oh she was so relieved to find the mud again. Poppy is still in the discovery stage.
Good morning. Look at these little ducklings. Sitting at the bar.
Life is good. I am worn out already. But good. I have also successfully integrated Mama and her flock with Queenie’s flerd. So now all the stock is in the good paddock and will stay out of the barn from now on. Deeply satisfying!
Have a lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
59 responses to “Look what came in the Mail”
I had to laugh when I went out to Reader this morning and saw a photo of muddy Sheila and the title, “Look What Came in the Mail.”
Chances are, after my youngest meets #3, he’ll have a name. She feels it is important for every animal, real or stuffed, to have a name.
Of course my oldest also likes to give animals names. On our last trip to Texas, we went fishing. She caught a fish and named him Flopper. Flopper was going with us for dinner that evening and I explained that you shouldn’t name your food, but he was Flopper and she was not removing his name.
Shortly after we arrived back to my BIL and SIL’s home, the filleting began. She wanted to learn how to fillet and fortunately she has an uncle that is a master at filleting fish and a patient teacher. Without hesitation, she let her uncle work hand-over-hand with her while she filleted Flopper and later she claimed, “Flopper was delicious.”
So, in my attempts to teach them to not name their food, they name their food and there hasn’t been a problem – yet!
The girls have also seen the picture of the ducklings and chicks. Lots of smiles, squeals of delight, ah’s and pure excitement over the possibility of petting some babies this weekend.
She sounds like she knows what she is doing though, naming her food. That is good. Chicks and Children! Perfect mix. Looking forward to it.c
Pesky plonkers (love that name). Is Red a Duroc? I can remember being told to stay away from them as a kid as they were mean. Could have been just that particular farmer’s line of pigs though. I always liked Duroc cross pigs because sometimes you would get calico colored pigs. I love calico cats, so calico pigs were great too. Has Sheila lost some weight or are you photographing her at flattering angles? lol It was nice to see the sheep again yesterday. The calves are so stinking cute. I would spend too much time playing with them and watching them if they were mine. It is lovely to see barefoot kids interested in the chickens. Sounds like we may need to hang onto our hats with the weather headed our way today and tonight.
Thank you Jeanne, i had not even looked at the weather .. I might shift those chicks into the glass house earlier than planned. SW is straight up onto my verandah.. with rain, ah well.. it will work out one way or the other. Now, coffee for me then i better get busy rearranging things to deal with storms. c
Oh, yes, chicks in the mail…I have whispers of memories of those delivered by the mailman to our farm. Will two new ones be shipped to replace the dead ones?
I, too, love that kids are learning from whence comes their food. Well done, C.
When I was a child at our farm in Germany watching the baby chicks was my favorite thing to do. I remember their warm, fluffy bodies. Such a wonderful feeling.
One of my favorite things to eat is duck confit, duck legs preserved in their own fat. The French farmers used this method to preserve their meat.
Aah, nothing says summer like Sheila applying her mud pack sunscreen! 🙂 Cute little peeps, love the ducklings. Laura
Even pigs need to have a think !! I will be smiling all day recalling today’s post . Thank you for letting us join you on the farmy.
Did you call it a “flerd?”
Yup A flock and a herd makes a Flerd! (Laugh).. c
Oh, I want ducks so badly! We have a pond, and it’s just begging for some domesticated ducks (right now there are a couple pairs of wood ducks, the occasional mallard, and a pair of Canada geese, so it’s not exactly empty). Life is hectic enough with a baby, though, so I’m forcing myself to be sensible and wait. Ducklings will be cuter when little M is big enough to hold them gently, anyway!
That is true, I would love to have a pond, not enough room though. If she spends enough time with them later on they will just follow her about.. that would be deeply cute.. c
The farmy is in full Summer mode now, with chickies and duckies and kiddies about. Good that you’ve enough room to deal with the plonkers. You couldn’t possibly keep an eye on them all Summer. With separation, both you and the plonkers will rest easy. The wind finally shifted today and it’s warm out. So much better than yesterday. There’ll be no jacket today! I’ve errands to run. Have a great day, Celi!
It has been a calm hot day. Everyone is being good and sleeping quietly in their own spaces..c
So lovely, c! I’ve got one of my extra babies on my lap, and she’s just giggling at your animals. Especially, the big red pig because all of the piggies in my board books are pinkish-white or cow-patched. Presently, all birds are owls to this wee one, so she is very happy to see your ‘beebee owls’. Thank you so much for the smile, sweet lady, and for this early introduction to summer. We had snow here just two days ago. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it will be warm enough to play in the dirt this weekend.
Miserable for you to have snow, hope you are able to take a break from the books this summer, just for a little while anyway, c
LOVE the pictures of the children checking out the chickens, took me a bit to figure out spoiled eggs. 🙂 Also love the picture of the cattle grazing on that beautiful green grass. We still can’t put our animals out to pasture because it’s still very cool, so grass hasn’t even totally greened up. We have also been getting tons of rain here, very wet, farmers are not able to get into the fields. I must say I’ll take the rain over drought any day.
Yesterday I butchered a couple extra roosters and two laying hens that were egg eaters. Somebody commented on the eggs inside of a hen when you butcher them. Since I have only butchered younger chickens I would never have thought of this, so it was great fun to find eggs inside one hen. Celi, if you would like to see a picture of the eggs that were in my hen, I have it posted on my facebook page. Thank you Celi for your wonderful blog!!!!
Did you make pasta with those eggs. John said that the older women in his family used them for pasta.. c
Your grass is so thick and lovely and green! We are still rather brown here…although we do have some green….not a lush as yours. And we are cold. Again. Still.. I’m so ready for warmth…lots of it!
♥ღLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
This is our hottest day for a while again, but not too cold again i hope.. I definitely have enough grass now, it is growing very fast in these high hot winds, we need rain though.. c
Did you get some Dominiques in that batch of cold weather layers? A couple of my friends keep them in South Dakota and the mountains of Colorado, and they do very well. They’re rosecombed birds, so they don’t get frostbite.
No I don;t think so. They are a bit of a mix as the ones I wanted were late due to the cold. They will my next flock of layers so it will be interesting to see!.. c
Sheila with a beauty mud pack. Too bad about the plonkers, but many porkers are mean tempered when around others of their kind. Just the nature of the beast. Our pond is too far away from the house for ducks, darn. Coyotes would be only too happy to take care of them from that far away. Last year’s chicks have become very nice laying hens now, but I had to get chicken saddles to protect them from the affections of the young rooster. Luckily they can fly over the low fence into the yard and the rooster has not figured that out yet.
We have no pond .. I will have to find an old paddling pool for them, I am thinking of making them a pen like Tima’s – I could just make a pond with the hose maybe.c.
Ducks without water to swim are sad. How about a kids plastic wading pool? If you want to raise and breed ducks you must have water. Mother ducks swim and get their down wet and then sit on their eggs, providing the correct humidity for them to hatch.
oh yes, they will have water.. I have another paddling pool, plus ducks actually need to submerge their bills a part of their feeding..
Mud, glorious mud…. 🙂