This video features our ducklings again!
Also included is an explanation of their house and bedding…
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KW Homestead
Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013
Author: Emma (page 23 of 36)
Today the new ducklings arrived at the post office, and we went to get them!
They were fantastic when they emerged from the box and very quickly started eating and drinking. They are very relaxed and literally the cutest things I have ever seen!
This video explains a little bit about them and the breeds we have…
Spring is here and you might already know about our first batch of Spring babies… Our 30 Khaki Campbell ducks!
We kept them inside for a little while and after the weather became consistently warmer we decided that it was high time they got kicked out (they were smelly and so messy!).
We wanted to be sure to build them a space that was near the house so they would be safer and easier to feed and watch. We also needed their space to be sheltered and secure, so a perfect spot seemed like the carport! Mind you, once we finish the poultry brood house (posts about this forthcoming) most ducks and other babies will grow up in there!
We need a bigger space than before so they would have room to run and spead out, but we were limited by the carport space, which actually worked out well… 2 cattle panels (oh, how we love to use cattle panels!), folded in the middle at right angles made a great 8′ x 8′ space for them. These panels were covered with chicken wire to keep ducks in and sneaky bad guys out (foxes, raccoons, possums…).
The carport pen!
The dog crate that was their only home before, became the space where they could escape the wind and bask under the heat lamp.
Inside their cozy dog crate.
We learned quickly that they really didn’t care much about the heat lamp beginning around 3 weeks old and for the past week or two we haven’t been turning it on very often! The dog crate was surrounded with plywood and cardboard which act as walls, and covered with a blanket to keep in their warmth.
Not beautiful, but very functional!
The first few days they were outside we locked them in the dog crate at night to be sure they were warm and safe, but we’ve since realized that leaving the carport light on makes them safe enough and they really enjoy spreading out!
The entirety of the 8′ x 8′ pen was lined with large cardboard pieces to keep the floor of the carport from becoming too stained and gross, and the cardboard was covered with leaves, straw, and pine chips to absorb their pooping and bathing shenanigans.
In one corner of their pen their 5 gallon water bucket hangs, suspended by an old metal pipe. Nipples (plastic ones, folks!) hang from the bucket and we refill their supply by pouring in water from the top. Pretty easy! Underneath the bucket is a large metal pan with hardware cloth attached on top. This collects any stray water droplets (and there are a lot!) and keeps the rest of the pen from getting totally soaked. We have to dump this pan out every few days so it doesn’t overflow.
Water for the ducklings!
The flock, keeping as far away from me as possible!
We finished the cage off with bird netting on top, just in case. We doubted that any hawk would be audacious enough to fly into the carport to snatch baby ducks, but stranger things have happened and we wanted to be safe.
The ducks are 5 weeks old now, and they are really starting to get adult feathers. Soon they’ll be big enough to move out into the real world–just in time for ducklings-batch-2 to arrive in about a week-and-a-half!
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We recently just DEEP-cleaned the basement. And when I say deep-cleaned, I mean it!
Since the chicks lived down there for far too long and we finally just kicked them out, there was a lot of cleaning to do! They had kicked up so much pine-shaving-and-poop dust that we had to vacuum, spray down, or wipe down EVERY SINGLE THING in the basement, no joke. The Christmas ornaments that were hanging on the tree had to be dusted (it is another story entirely as to why we still had the tree up…), the ceiling had to be swept with brooms to clear it of “floof,” and every single plant was wiped down. Shall I go on…? Ahhh!
This took forever but we feel so great now that it is all sooooo clean down there. We even did some rearranging to get ourselves ready for planting, processing crops, and working in the kitchen down there.
The main hang out space is now tree-free and ready for the ping pong table whenever we’re ready to challenge each other to a duel!
We processed and placed the dried crops that were taking up so much of our work space, and we now have a work table free for crafts and other homestead necessities.
What an open space we have!
I am most excited about the kitchen, which has been super-scrubbed and the counters have been cleared off and made ready for dealing with any meats or food processing we plan to do. The dehydrator now has a permanent home and there is way more table space!
Downstairs kitchen!
And now for the big reveal… The bathroom. It was once a hotbed of chicken grossness, and now it is utterly clean and empty! Don’t be shocked by how much it looks like a torture chamber… It can’t help it… It was made that way! Clearly, it is unfinished and might remain so in order to use it for butchery or other activities like rinsing vegetables in bulk (it has a drain in the floor and we have a huge colander).
So clean (by dank and dark basement bathroom standards)!
It feels so great to already be ahead of the game on spring cleaning!
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Today is my 29th birthday, and I thought it would be a good (and fun) time to reflect on our almost 2 years in our house in the country…
These are just a few of the many reasons why I love living in the country on our homestead:
- When the seasons change, you get to witness them in full color and bloom!
Our blooming Bradford Pear; Bolt loves the spring too!
- Where else to have our wedding except on our own land?!
Our wedding.
- That drive home from the city… When I leave the lighted ares of the world and finally get to the dark… Then I feel like I’m home.
- Being able to use our land the way we want without anyone telling us otherwise. Gardens, animal fences, etc.
Growing cucumbers in the garden.
A yard full of chickens!
- Having an entire fridge in the basement dedicated to chicken eggs, duck eggs (in the future), and beer.
Eggs and beer!
- Having an entire freezer in the basement dedicated to venison.
Oh, meat!
- Having all the animals we want without thinking about city ordinances, etc.
Those crazy geese!
- Being able to explore all of the crazy, old outbuildings we have and search for treasures inside!
The awesome corn crib!
- Having acres and acres of land to explore.
Walking in the woods!
- Knowing that our children will have lots of space to explore, run, play,and grow.
- Feeling like our project ideas are endless and boundless.
- And many, many more reasons that cannot all be stated here…
Happy at home!
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Since getting our pot bellied pigs a few weeks ago, we’ve already learned a lot about them: their behaviors, traits, and personalities!
I wanted to spend the time to let you know a few things that we’ve learned over the past while, perhaps including some facts that you might not have known…
- Pot bellies are very smart animals, arguably as intelligent as dogs and sometimes as personable. That is why it has become more common in the U.S. for people to keep them as pets.
- Although they are considered pets by many people today, they were originally domesticated 6,000 years ago as homestead pigs for meat in Vietnam and other Asian countries.
- When kept in confinement (like a 16 foot x 16 foot pen like we have) they tend to poop in certain areas that they have determined are the farthest away from their food, water, and sleep area. We have seen our pigs leaving their shelter to walk over to the corner where their “bathroom” is. We also noticed that during transport, when we first got all of them, each one of them held their pee until they got out of the trailer/truck/car. They realized that peeing where they were sitting would be wet for them, so they decided to hold it!
Pigs! They’ve decided that their bathroom area is over by the aluminum-walled corner.
See the poop?! - They sure can bite! I already knew that adult pigs could eat an entire person if they desired (especially the larger, standard-sized pigs), but I didn’t think that piglets would choose to bite as a defense mechanism! When we were catching them to bring them home, one of the piglets that I was holding chomped down on my upper arm, leaving a major scratch and bruise. Luckily I had on 2 layers of clothes or he definitely would have broken the skin!
Ouch! Dammit, piglet!
- Male pot bellies have tusks, just like other pigs and wild boars, unless you get them removed when they are piglets (sounds painful to me!).
Gandalf’s glamour shot. If you look closely, you can see his tusks!
- They reach sexual maturity at very young ages… Much younger than you’d expect! For example, our piglets are nearing sexual maturity! Males generally go through puberty at 3 months old and females at 3 or 4 months old. Often, breeding does not result in any litters at this young age, since even though their bodies are mature, they’re still not always fully functioning. And yes, they will breed with their fathers, mothers, or siblings unless you separate them! They definitely don’t have the same concept of “the incest taboo” that we do in the human world.
- Pigs can be weaned anytime from 1 month old to 2 months old!
- Pigs can eat almost anything, and since they are good at foraging and rooting for food, we’ve put their pen over a nasty patch of poison oak. They should dig up the roots and eat them before spring begins. Then we can plant corn there!!!
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This has been an intense winter, as many of you know from first-hand experience!
We’ve had to make a few fence repairs from the wind, and “pick up the pieces” after winter storms came through and dropped inches of snow.
Here’s our adventure in picture form:
A few weeks ago we had a wind storm that blew gusts around 50 or 60 miles per hour. We never, in our wildest dreams, would have thought that the chicken fence would act like a sail and fold up onto itself like a fan:
Where’d the square-shaped fence go?
An airborne fence? Whoa!
Stupidly, for the most recent winter storm we didn’t prepare for a power outage at all. We over-prepared (is there really such a thing?) for the one before this last one, but not for this one!
Since we get our water from a well, our water doesn’t work when the power doesn’t. We utterly forgot to worry about this, and so when we woke up yesterday to find that our power was out, we realized that we had to find a way to get water for our ducks to drink. We decided that melting snow next to the wood stove was the best bet…
Jason scooping snow into “the bathtub” to put by the wood stove.
And we also forgot to remove the netting from the chicken pen to keep the snow from sticking to it…
The netting became so heavy with snow that it deformed the fence!
Luckily none of the netting ripped!
Yes, that’s a blanket of snow on top of our bird netting!
Even after all the cleanup and repairs we had to do, it still is lovely to have a blanket of snow on the ground. I’m still not sick of winter yet, not when we have views like this…
And of course, the geese were not phased by the situation at all and continued to bathe throughout the freezing temperatures!
They don’t look quite as white as they used to, do they?
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Last weekend we finally felt comfortable enough with the weather to kick the teenager chickens out of the house and make them grow up!!!
We have an empty nest now! Except, not really because we have the new ducklings to take care of!
Anyway, we decided to put the female teenagers in with the adult standards and add the bantams in with them. The teenage boys are in the old bantam tractor and Gimpsy gets to live in his own cage in the carport (except during cold weather).
Getting them out of their basement home was simple since they are so used to me picking them up and petting them.
Teenage boys waiting in the cage to be moved to the bantam tractor.
The boys have adjusted just fine in their tractor (likely because they don’t have any other chickens picking on them).
The girls… Not so much.
Some teenage girls trying to find their way in their new home.
When we first put them in the yard with the other chickens, they acted catatonic and really confused about life. Since that day, most of them are more well-adjusted. Others still run from all other contact with chickens and hide in the corner of the fence or the house. We think that given time, all of the teenage girls will integrate just fine with the rest of the flock (i.e. their mothers and father).
Gimpsy is doing fine in his cage, and has become more vocal since feeling like he is the king of his castle (that is, except when Bolt sticks his big, ugly mug up next to his cage).
King of his castle!
More updates to come!
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This year we’re hitting the ground running with a lot of new ideas and plans being put into action!
Pigs
You might have already read about our new potbellied pigs and their new weather-proofed pen! Here is the lowdown on our pigs: We have…
- One adult male who is about 3 years old. His name is Gandalf and he is our breeding male. He still has his tusks, which makes him more dangerous than the other adults. Even though he is generally friendly (his old owner told us that Gandalf thinks he is a dog), he can still push up against you or rub up against you affectionately with his face and hurt you. We have to be sure that when we are near him, we wear thick pants and gloves.
- Two adult females who are about 2 1/2 years old. They are sisters and we haven’t named them yet. They look very similar but one has yellow at the end of her tail and the other does not. We’re just calling them The Sisters for now. They are less interested in human contact than Gandalf is but are not unfriendly. They just have not been socialized as much as Gandalf, but I have noticed that they have become more interested in us when we come over to their pen.
- Four piglets. Three of them are from one litter and are 2 1/2 months old and the fourth one is from another litter and is 1 1/2 months old. Half are males and half are females.
Our long-term plans for the pigs are to keep the breeding trio as just that, and to allow each mother to have 2 litters per year. Their litters will be humanely harvested as meat once they have grown up.
Turkeys
You might have read our most recent post about beginning our turkey operation and raising birds for this year’s Thanksgiving!
We just ordered our turkeys the other day: 50 Bourbon Red Heritage Turkeys and 20 Heritage Turkeys that will be a mix-and-match of 6 heritage breeds. We plan to keep a couple breeding groups so we can hatch our own eggs in subsequent years. We also plan to eat many of them ourselves! Yum!
A baby turkey (called a poult).
Ducks
Around the time that we get our baby turkeys in April, we will also be getting some ducks to start a laying operation. We haven’t ordered these guys yet, but it looks like we’re going to be getting Cayuga ducks which are a beautiful black/green color, lay gray or even black eggs, and are very personable. We’ll also be getting another breed as well, to be determined.
A beautiful cayuga duck! We can’t wait for those gray eggs!
Chickens
Since the winter weather has shut down a lot of our outside chores except for feeding and watering the animals, some of our ideas and projects have shut down too. For example, the chicken tractor that we began building a few weeks ago is covered in snow right now and still incomplete. Since our chickens have gotten even larger since we began the chicken tractor, we realized that we can simply add them to the adult flock in a few days once the weather gets a bit warmer. The bantams will leave their bantam tractor and live with the standards for a while, and the younger female chickens will leave their basement home and join the others. The tractor can then house the younger male chickens until we butcher them (leaving one barred rock and one hybrid male for breeding).
And, in three more months the new hens should start laying eggs, adding to how many eggs we’ll get!
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Yesterday and today have been pig-filled days… Tonight we ate pigs-in-a-blanket while watching an awesome video about butchering pigs, but not until after we finished creating the wind-and-snow-proof, new pig hideaway. Our original fence was working just fine for mild weather, but we knew that we need something a lot sturdier and weather proof considering the incoming 6+ inches of snow!
The side of the shelter. Old doors we found in the barn are lashed down for sturdy wind breaks… Emma’s idea! The 2 perpendicular sides of the shelter are situated like this.
The 3rd side of their shelter… A partial cattle panel with a tarp wrapped around it for blocking the wind. This side runs diagonally across one corner of their pen… This was Jason’s idea!
- The one small opening they have for getting in and out… This minimizes the wind and snow that can fly in!
Looking in at the pigs from a little peep hole in the opposite corner from their entrance… We’ve stuffed it with hay so they can fully bury themselves if desired (since they love this so much!).
Pigs in the hay! Stay warm tonight!
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