Ducks and Daffodils (and a couple of chicks, too!)

We moved the four oldest chicks and the six ducklings out to the Taj Mah Coop over the weekend. I let them out for a little "exploration free ranging" yesterday afternoon. The older chickens and ducks really aren't at all interested in them, other than to raid the feeder. We have a small tub for them to bathe in, and one chick jumped right in with the ducks (identity crisis?). Here's some photos from their adventures.


Taking a drink out of the tub (this is after they jumped in it, of course!)


Exploring and checking out the area


Trying to get organized for their photo shoot


Leaving the shoot...


Being so cute makes us thirsty again!

Have a ducky day!
:o) jenn

Introduction

As I have started to "follow" other blogs here, I decided that I should probably have an introductory blog on my page. I have many "blogs to do" but have to upload the accompanying photos to this computer. I guess this will be my big job for next week. My name is Jenn. I live in upstate NY (Windsor, NY) on a small hobby farm with my partner, Pete, and our 15-year-old daughter, Allison. We have a pointer/lab mix dog who is 5 and named "Herbie Herbalicious" and a beta fish named "Charles". We moved here 18 months ago. We are relatively "newbie" farmers, although I had backyard chickens at my previous house. Our home is literally located on top of a mountain in the middle of the woods and we have have a small barn, part of which has been converted into our chicken coop. Through an access door, our chickens are able to get into their "yard" which is an 1800 ft^2 penned area that they share with our ducks and turkeys. When we are home, we give them full free-range access to our gardens and woods.





At present, we have 15 ducks and 25 chickens and 2 rabbits out in the barn. In our brooders, we have 19 chicks (ranging from 3 days old to 3 weeks old), 4 turkeys (about 2 weeks old), and 6 pekin ducklings (about 3 weeks old). We have 7 chicken eggs in our Brinsea MiniAdvance Incubator(anticipated hatch day May 19), a clutch of 12 eggs under a broody duck (due to hatch approximately the same time), and I have "on order" 4 muscovy ducks that are due to hatch about the same time.

We are undertaking many new adventures that I will be blogging about this year including canning (I have already done two batches), cheesemaking (we have done one feta but will be doing more this week), beer brewing and wine making (first brew scheduled to take place this Sunday).



I hope that you will enjoy reading about our adventures. This year is going to be a great year of "firsts" for us as we hone our skills.