We have had three ducks for a while now, and they have been very enjoyable.  There are some great benefits to have ducks, they love to eat bugs, lots and lots of bugs. They will graze on grasses, herbs and weeds without being as destructive as chickens are. They also lay wonderful eggs, my family doesn’t love eating the eggs, but using duck eggs in baking produces a superior product and we hord the duck eggs for all our baking.
This spring I have been talking and talking and talking about getting some more ducklings. We never actually purchased them, usually there was something more pressing that needed funds or I felt like I wasn’t set up for ducklings just yet, there were many excuses and reasons I kept putting off getting those ducklings.

One evening I was speaking to my Dad and he mentioned that the feed store close to him had ducks for sale at a steeply discounted price. He said we was willing to run over first thing in the morning to see if any were left and bring them to me the next day.  I readly agreed, hoping that there would be two or three left, the price was so good on those birds that I couldn’t imagine they would still be there.

The next morning when he and my brother arrived at my house he asked me how I felt about twenty two ducks.  Seriously? Twenty two ducks! When he got the the store, right as it opened, there were twenty two ducks left and he asked the sales lady if he could take them all.  She told him if he would take them all that he could have them at no cost, they were that eager to have them gone.  They boxed them up and brought them to me.

Now Quail Run Farm is home to twenty five ducks, we are so excited, we love having ducks around.  For the next little while the ducklings will live in the backyard where they have acess to a warm heat lamp, supplimental feed, grass, bugs and a kiddie pool. Happy ducks are healthy ducks!

After a long dark winter the girls are laying again!  Hens naturally stop laying as the daylight hours decrease, it is nature’s way of making sure the birds are using energy to keep warm and not on producing eggs that can’t be hatched or if they were to hatch would have a low survival rate in the winter.  To keep hens producing through the winter months some producers and back yard chicken keepers will supplement with lighting and heat.  Here at Quail Run Farm we don’t do that, we let the hens go through a period of rest, we believe this is healthier for our birds, keeping them in their natural rhythms as much as we can. It can be a little discouraging feeding birds all winter long and only getting a couple of eggs a day, but as stewards over these animals we take on the good and the bad that comes with each animal and give them the best care we can.

That being said, I did a cheer and fist pump when my little farm boy gathered his first dozen eggs this spring! We are now, again, producing enough eggs for our needs and will soon have enough to sell.

Scratching around the dill patch, eating old seeds, bugs and new seedlings. Soon they will be fenced out of this area, but for now they can enjoy the forage and we have the benefits of their scratching and manure to fertilize.

Our chickens at Quail Run Farm are free range all year long.  At nights we close them in a coop to protect them from predators, but every morning the coop doors are open wide for our girls to explore and feast on fresh grasses and bugs, the natural diet of chickens. In the winter the girls tend to stick very close to home, they don’t like walking in the snow, so they either hang out in the coop or under the coop where they have shelter. When the days start getting longer and warmer, and the snow starts to recede the girls get adventurous again range widely across the farm, enjoying the new fresh grass, a welcome variety to their normal winter ration.

Working hard turning the compost pile for me, eating bugs, worms and old seeds.