The time has come

For the ducklings to venture outside.
Indian runner ( 'Jemima puddleduck') ducks are good payers, so we thought wed get some  eggs and incubate them  .

And we did

And it was reasonably successful.

And the ducklings have grown and started to  get feathers, and with the mild(er) weather  its time for them to go outside

There are 19 in total.

We've not been able to sex them yet, but we will only be keeping a  few males. So duck will be on the menu later in the year .

And the food miles per duck ?  0.01136 miles ( 20 yards - the distance from the house to the lawn where they will be )  per duck. 
Beat that !

The new duck run

And we have realised that duck eggs sell quite well. And our current ducks - there were 8 but one has wandered off somewhere - arent laying anything at the moment. And they are very sweet , but also stupid , as explained here 
So we are going to get some Indian Runners  ( Jemima Puddleduck -like ducks )

But obviously ours wont have the hat or coat.

And we, and the rest of Orkney,  still have a problem with stoats. So the new duck run, just like the existing one  , will have to be stoat-proof.
And we dont want to be lugging watre around for them , so it has to be near a pond/stream.

So i dammed a bit of the stream

aand whacked in a few fence posts we have . Ishould have concreted them in - the ground there is a bit soft and getting the posts  to stay vertical has been tricky and not entirely successful.

And then covered the whole thing in wire mesh

The ducks were getting a  bit big for their old chick run.

so they have been moved to the new run.

 The hen will go back to the rest of the flock in a few days and the ducks will get used to their new home,

More Ducks ( hopefully)

There appears to be  good market for duck eggs. Our ducks are very sweet, and stupid . And not very good at consistently laying . Indian Runner ducks are better at consistently laying. And we have another broody hen.
So we kept the broody hen occupied , and sitting, on a couple of false eggs,- -real eggs, blown and then filled with plaster   -

And you can order eggs  on the internet - and a few days later they  arrived. 

So we replaced te plaster eggs with the real ones.

And she continues to brood on them. And the incubation period is 28 days.

And 28 days from putting them under the hen will be  26th June
So watch this space

New Arrivals

We think that in the ducks that we have hatched  we have 4 drakes and 1 hen. Not what we wanted.  I suspect we may not be having turkey for Christmas this year . ( But Christmas Dinner is messed up because of the Christmas Day Ba ) and probably wont happen on Christmas Day.

Khaki Campbells

We thought we had better increase our stock and add some diversity , so we bought some Khaki Campbell  ducks and some Indian Runners. We have had problems keeping up with the demand for eggs  and Indian Runners are prolific layers and may keep going into the winter.  
So we had some delivered off the ferry from Aberdeen. This involved going to meet the ferry  at 11pm. Hanging around whilst they unloaded everything, picking  your animals out a  crate , taking them home and settling them in . So all finished shortly after 1 am .



And to stop the other ducks going after them we have penned both lots .

When the new ones are bit bigger and able to stand up for themselves

Indian Runners

And this lot of ducks are as stupid as the ones we already have.

q. Which is more intelligent, a duck or a root vegetable ?
A. A carrot