Ducklings

Harley & family

Last summer a friend gave me some ducklings, mostly runner ducks crossed with Welsh Harlequins. But one drake looked to be pure WH. Harley is really beautiful with his emerald green head and wing bars, with black and brown on his white body. So I kept him and I got a pretty female from my friend too. She's a little light and does not have as much color on her as I've seen on other WH girls.

She doesn't have a name, I just think of her as Harley's girl or Mamma Duck. She started laying at New Years and laid every day, without a single break until mid April when she went broody.

Now I had read that hatching duck eggs in an incubator is harder than chicken eggs. But I had several hatches of 90-100%. Mamma duck is not very big and was trying to cover too many eggs so I put some in the incubator and left her with 13.

Last week Mamma hatched 10 of her 13 eggs and 2 more babies hatched in the incubator. As soon as they were dried off I gave them to her and everyone has been doing fine.  Harley doesn't bother the babies at all. Oh but don't make Mamma upset because Harley will come to her rescue and Mamma will charge if you try to get to the babies!

All of these babies are for sale, so if you are looking for Welsh Harlequins and are near Globe, Arizona, contact me! (hysong AT cableone DOT net)

A New Chicken Pen

Chain link dog kennels chicken pens

 I have chickens every where right now. Nothing has gone according to plan, so the new coop and runs are not ready yet. So when these dog kennels were advertised locally I jumped on them. A little beat up, a couple holes, I've been working on rewiring them where needed to make them more secure.

 Hard to see, but there are two of those kennels with gates in them, one at each end. Then there are some plain panels to help make a larger area. The original owner cut holes in the sides of the kennels so the center area was accessible to his dogs. Here I've put a leftover chain link panel on top of the far left kennel and wired up some tin.

 New Pens in progress

The idea is to close in this end on the side and back and make this the roosting and nesting area. Covering this end should also help give some shade in the afternoon.

Today when I got home I remembered a large panel of siding nailed to a light weight frame. It was part of the roof of a pop up tent trailer. It covered most of this side, but I didn't get a pic yet.

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In other news, I'm over run with eggs! The light tan ones at 3:00 are from my Buff Orpingtons and Buff crosses. the blue and greens are of course from the easter eggers. In the top are some Welsummer and Wellie crosses and the two dark eggs in the center compartment are from my Black Copper Marans pullets that have recently started laying.

I am not sure who belongs to this gigantor egg. At first I thought it was from one of the Black Copper girls, but when I looked at it again, I'm thinking that it might just be from a young Welsummer pullet in the same pen, as she has suddenly got a red comb. I suppose time will tell.