Christmas fun

Because why not. The boys weren't too impressed😄.

Chicken coop- covered run roof repair

 Our chicken coop/barn has a covered run which has clear roofing so the light can still get in. Over time this clear roofing has sustained some damage, mostly due to ice storms. I needed a quick fix with winter upon us, I  came up with the idea of putting a very large, clear tarp over the entire run roof. We have been using this for over a month now and it has gone through one big snowstorm (15 inches of snow) and several small snow, rain or ice events. I can say that this temporary fix is working great! 

Tarp was around $35.

Ice storm damage to covered run roof.

KitKat helping.

Turkey helping.

Fairly easy fix, not bad at all!

A month in and working well.

 

My best hubbard squash

 My very best Blue Hubbard squash made a wonderful addition to Thanksgiving dinner (and a huge amount of soup for lunches after that!). It was in excess of 35 pounds! I saved some seeds maybe I'll get some as big again next year.

The birds clean up and work the gardens now that everything is harvested.

 The chickens and ducks are good at clearing up the gardens and doing a bit of fertilizing now that the season is done. KitKat supervises.

Chicken In A Tree.....at bedtime

 There are many things about chicken keeping that are good, this situation is not one of those good things. Chicken in a tree at bedtime. Coop shut up time, dark, everyone else is safely in. My count is wrong, someone is missing. 

Going back say 6 years we had this issue with a chicken named Rebel. She had a habit of settling into a tree instead of going into the coop at night. KitKat could usually "encourage" Rebel down, it's one of his super powers. Failing that a kid would have to climb up the tree. 

KitKat helps get Rebel out of a tree 2016

 

Since then we haven't had chicken in a tree problems. Rebel calmed down or gave up trying to sleep outside and nobody else tried to sleep in a tree. This years batch of chicks is a little wild, a little rebellious and some nights I find a few in a tree. Not too high up though and I can prod them out of the tree and into the coop. This night one of the chicks, a Sapphire Gem breed, now 4-5 months old was missing. I counted birds and counted again. I looked in the tree where I thought she might be, I looked all around the farmyard. Finally in a tree behind the coop I saw a little movement, by now it was quite dark so I was thankful to spot her. 

Chicken in a tree

She is so high up and isn't going anywhere by her own power now that it has gotten quite dark. Chickens can't see well in the dark. KitKat was already in for the night so I couldn't count on his help. Felix was around but in a rather aloof mood, as Felix often can be, she wasn't interested in helping with my dilemma.

Felix says..It's a no, I'm not into chicken wrangling.

 

So what to do? It's not a climbing kind of tree, she's pretty high up there. The board I keep around to gently prod or even help this batch of chickens out of the tree with is by far not long enough. So...I got the fruit picking pole, it has a basket on the end and I thought maybe the chicken would grasp on to the basket and I could lower her. Too short. I thought of the roof rake and so went to fetch that. It's long enough by the wide top part doesn't go through the branches very well to get where I need. This is an old apple tree, I wasn't looking to forcefully prune it or break lots of branches. And of course I don't want to hurt the chicken.

Finally found something long enough, the roof rake.

Finally I wrangled the roof rake into a good position but that was only half the battle. Next I had to find a way to get the chicken to get on the rake and then somehow lower her down without injury to chicken, tree or myself. It took a little time but at last by some miracle it worked!

But will I be able to get her on the roof rake?

It took awhile but finally, success.

Chicken being safely lowered from the tree.

 I even managed to take pictures while lowering her! Always a photo storyteller at heart. 

At last the chicken is in the coop, I shined my headlamp for a while so she could see to settle in, did a recount in case someone had gone out of the coop and finally, close to an hour after starting evening shut up chores, everyone is safe and where they should be. 

 

In the coop for the night.

Why didn't I just let her sleep in the tree? Predators, that's why. I didn't name this blog My Wild Homestead just because of the many animals that currently and in the past have shared our lives. It's also because we live in a very wooded area, there is plenty of wildlife and some of those come out at night.  I didn't want our little Saffy chicken to be their evening meal. I may start calling Saffy (from blue sapphire) Blue Rebel instead since that is certainly what she is! Hopefully tonight will go better. I do go out at dusk not full dark so if anyone isn't yet in they can see and be encouraged to head to the coop. It wasn't that dark when I realized Blue Rebel was missing but it was full dark by the time I found her. Darkness comes quickly in the woods.

Tools of the trade an an unripe apple casualty.

 

Ducks- A Troubleshooting Guide

 

Ducks on the homestead yay or nay?

 Quite a few years ago we added ducks to the farm. This wasn't really planned out, like many people we saw the adorable ducklings in the farm store and some came home with us that very day. We already had experience with chickens, how different could it be??

It's different, quite different! 

We're not all like each other.

 

First we'll deal with troubleshooting fresh, clean water. 

Ducks have their own unique preferences and needs and well...our ducks are messy! I know some people claim ducks are not messy but seriously we've had them for 7 years, our ducks ARE messy. They love water, they love mud, they love digging and dabbling in the dirt and mud to find treasures such as worms. They swim, they splash and they turn all water brown very, very quickly! If you have both chickens and ducks the chickens will enjoy nice clean, fresh water. The ducks will not respect that if they share waterers with chickens. 

 

In the case of water bowls the ducks will enjoy dipping their bill right in, swishing around and getting a good drink. Nothing wrong with this, ducks NEED to be able to dunk their whole bill in the water. Bit it doesn't matter how many bowls you fill with water the ducks will find ALL  and within minutes all those bowls of fresh, clean water will be  brown. Result brown not very nice water, in minutes. 

 

Next water variation is a gravity waterer. There are many types but they all work about the same, you fill the large tank and water drops down into the tray without over spilling the lip of the tray. A large waterer like this could last for days between filling...if you have only chickens. The ducks will find work arounds to make all the water spill out. On the rare days that they don't spill the entire tank of water (possibly in an attempt to have a nice mud puddle on the ground), they will still dirty the water quite quickly. Dirt from their bills gets into the water tray as they drink and builds up making all water that goes into he tray dirty.  Result- brown and/or completely spilled water in minutes. 

Ah, a nice drink for me.

This was fresh, clean water an hour ago.

 

Then there is "the watering hole" This is what I call the kiddie pools we have for the ducks to swim in and drink from. Ducks love to swim, paddle and drink from their pools. Most farm ducks are land ducks who don't need to swim to exist but they sure do enjoy it just as their wild counterparts do. I think having a watering hole of some sort leads to a better quality of life for ducks. This gets messy too, yes pretty much right away. As soon as I let the birds out in the morning the ducks head straight to their pools. Result- messy but this is FOR the ducks not the chickens (though they hang out there too sometimes). On a related note these toddler pools and sandboxes make great duck pools once your kids are too big for them. They last and last. The turtle pool is over 20 years old now, we bought it when our oldest was very young.

 

So where is the troubleshooting here? How to get clean water for the chickens. The solution we use is a nipple waterer, a big one. This one holds 12 gallons of water, when I fill it I add a little apple cider vinegar and the water stays clean. The chickens can access this water and ducks can't! Result- CLEAN water for chickens!

SOLUTION- many types of water systems available and a nipple watering system for the chickens. 

Next another water related issue, troubleshooting frozen water.

 

 Problem, water in winter!

This is only a problem for those who live where the weather gets below freezing, we most definitely do. Ducks need water, chickens need water too but ducks need MORE water. They depend on it to help them eat their food. As soon as the weather freezes everything gets harder on the homestead. The hoses freeze, the water in bowls, waterers and pools freeze. I know some have frost free hydrants outdoors, we do not. Sooooo ... I'm lugging water before work, after work and later in the day. To prevent the water freezing, which would lead to lugging even more water from the house, there are solutions. 

The ducks actually quite like the snow, unlike chickens. The ducks also don't seem to be bothered by the cold weather except or the most extreme below 0 F days. The snow to ramble about in seems to make up for the lack of a pool in winter. We keep the pools open for them as long as we can but eventually the hose freezes up and the pools freeze to multi inch depth ice an d it's no longer sustainable. We do not heat a pool for them. They enjoy the snow, and take a swim in their largest water bowls and that's good enough.

We like the snow.

We like making messes in the snow.

Not so think ice

a warm up, the hose is working I guess I can treat the ducks to their pools.

Our ducks don't mind winter.

So the pool is replaced by the snow, the large water bowl and well, sometimes if the hose has defrosted being a super amazing farmer and getting the ice out of the pools and filling them. This is not easy because the ice is heavy and slippery but it can be done in the early or late winter when temps aren't quite so bad by using shovels and levers of a sort.

Problem water bowls and containers in winter.

For a large part of winter water will freeze very quickly once it's put out for the animals. To solve this problem a variety of heaters are used. We use these in the covered run NOT in the coop itself out of an abundance of caution. 

I don't have good pictures on this device but these are exactly what we use in winter:

Heated bowl larger

Under waterer heater

Self contained heated waterer (this one is a spare it's a bit hard to fill)

Submersible tank heater, this goes in the large nipple waterer

Heated bowl  bit smaller (spare if larger one goes out). 

Solutions- heated bowls, water container heaters, ducks like snow and which makes up for frozen pools, occasional brute strength for ice removal.

There, we've tackled most water issues when it comes to ducks or ducks living with chickens. Now the other potential issues and some solutions.

Problem Wet, Messy bedding!

Our ducks live in the same coop (really a small barn) as our chickens. Our ducks are messy! Our ducks get everything wet. Too much moisture in the coop is not ideal, especially in winter. Our solution is cage in coop or bedtime for ducks. Everyone uses all of the coop whenever they want by day but at night the ducks go to bed into a set of cages within the coop. These cages attached together result in an area of around 3 foot by 6 foot which is plenty big for them to sleep in. The bedding in the coop cages can be changed very frequently without the need to clean the whole coop. the cages are covered with trays on top to catch chickens droppings as their roosts are above the cages. Thus our solution is separate sleeping area and frequent cleaning/shavings change. This also keeps a segment of duck bedding separate from chicken bedding and while chicken manure/ bedding is "hot" and can't be added to gardens right away,  ducks manure/ bedding can go straight into the garden if needed. It's not hot. 

Solution- separate housing, frequent cleaning.

The chickens seem to want to model the ducks newly clean cages;

Wet, dirty duck bedding

Using cages in coop keeps ducks mess contained fresh shavings can be added often.

This can be changed as often as needed without needing to clean the whole coop. The ducks happily sleep in these two attached dog kennel cages each night.

 

 

The next troubleshooting issue is more common in summer than winter and that is....

Problem- Find the hidden eggs!

Our ducks generally do not use the nest boxes that our chickens use. 

 

While we do have one duck who will sometimes use the ground level nest boxes, generally the ducks like to hide their eggs. We have a VERY large fenced farmyard so this egg hunt can be very time consuming! The problem with not finding the eggs is that the ducks will sometimes try to build up nests to hatch, then one night a duck or two won't go to bed, which is not very safe at this wild homestead in the woods. The predators are active at night.  I really don't like wandering around with a strong flashlight at 9:00pm searching for the duck who is hiding a nest so prevention is the best cure. 

After some searching I found these eggs in a new nest.

 I can follow the ducks in the morning to see where they head, this doesn't work during my school (work) year though. I can leave the ducks shut up a little later in hopes they will lay their eggs in their sleeping cage but they seem to be able to "hold" it until thew get out. I can keep the b rush trimmed down low so the ducks can't hide their nests as easily but they are incredibly smart and resourceful! I can find a nest but then pretend I didn't, sneaking back to fetch the eggs later when the duck isn't looking. This is a good solution because once a duck knows I have found their nest they will hide a new nest. 

Better check under here this was a previous nest hiding area.

Aha they have decided to revist this old nest area.

Good thing I found this one today!

Too many hidden eggs, the brush has grown a lot. Time for my trusty brush whacker!

 

I do have a bedtime routine for the ducks which often even broody ducks can't resist.  While the chickens mainly go to the coop and roost for the night at dusk the ducks do not. When I go out to shut up the coop for the night I call out "ducks  ducks, ducks" and then the ducks come running. They come running because they know that once in their cages in coop I will give them small bowls with a few dried soldier fly grubs. All but the very most broody ducks will come running for their bedtime snack and sometimes I even catch a broody by going back out and calling again to find the missing duck, They almost can't resist and will call back with quack, quack, quack noises so I can find the missing duck 95% of the time. For the 5% well 3 or 4 times over almost 7 years a duck has slept outdoors for the night. The next morning I can find them by watching carefully as they will come out to eat and drink and get that first swim in the pool. 

Find the hidden ducks, there are two here. They may be thinking this is a good new nest area.

One under the log.

Another under a different part of the log.

 

Solutions to the great egg hunt? A bit of everything, learn their habits, keep the grass and brush trimmed, go back to old nest areas after some time has passed, they may be using them again, watch carefully the next morning if a duck was not found the night before, have a routine at bedtime.  

Our duck journey started with 4 adorable  Khaki Campbell ducklings from Tractor Supply. We later added the following ducklings- a Black Swedish and two Rouens.  Finally our duck family was complete with the adoption of three adult ducks, a Cayuga, a Khaki Campbell and a Mixed breed. One of our original ducks passed at around 3 years old. The rest remain happy and healthy at now ages 5-ish -7. Ducks can be a great addition to the homestead, they provide extra large eggs, their manure is great for gardens and can be used right away, their dirty pool water makes a good fertilizer for plants, kids enjoy them and they are fun for all ages to watch, they do have some funny antics.  Ducks can live happily with chickens too provided you take a few extra things into consideration especially ... SPILLED and MUDDY WATER!