The Word-Nerd’s Homestead-2022, #2- Fake Spring

Hello, Happy Readers!

Well, Fake Spring is springing. All the Dumb Plants are poofing so that they can get freezelated again next week. This includes the redbuds & peaches around here. *sigh*. Probably another year with no fruits to talk about.

It’s been a few weeks since the last homestead blog, so I have a collection of things to talk about. I think I’m going to break it up into multiple posts though.

So, for this one, lets talk about Ducks!

The breeding split-up started back on Feb 6th. I separated the Welsh Harlequins into their new area and had to duplicate the amenties for them.

First, I repaired the holes in the big plastic pool with my new heat gun.

Then I installed a drain into it. I cut out the center part so it would drain well, including leaves and rocks the ducks decide to put in there.

After that, dug a ditch and put some pipe in it for a drain.

All that was left after that was a bit of leveling up and filling with water.

It took less than 5 minutes for the Harley’s to dirty it up!

At that time I had the Blue Laced Red Wyandottes in with them because I didn’t have the breeder hutch finished yet. That build will be a future post.

Below you can see two Harlequin females and a drake.

Here are some better shots of the drake. Ain’t he a beautiful bird?!?

As of this posting, I have less than a dozen eggs from these stingy girls. As soon as I get enough out of them and the Blue Swedish to make a full incubator, I’ll be hatching out my first ducklings to sell.

For now… we wait!

The Blue Swedish crew still get the run of the old pen. The 3 young ones I hatched out (21 weeks old as of this post) are almost grown. The Blue Swedish turned out to be a male. That makes 4 in that group, which is too many. I have decided to try to sell him along with the mixed white & gray female. I have no idea what genetics ended up showing up in the other one, but she is very pretty to me, so I ‘m keeping her.

Enjoy some pictures of the flock!

That’s all I have for a Duck update for now!

Stay tuned for another blog this week showing the Wyandotte Breeder coop build, and other with the hen box build. I may even have one for a chicken flock post.

Oh, also, if you read the Book Dump blogs back in December… well, they put more orphaned books out on the stoop, so I have another blog post about that coming soon!

Thanks for drooping by!

Oh yeah, I almost I forgot. I made a business card! If you are in NW Georgia and need eggs or ducklings, shoot me an email! I have got to do something with them. I can’t eat all of them myself!

Chicken (left) & Duck (right) eggs. Before cleaning, of course

Happy Reading, Prepping & Homesteading!

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