At just shy of three
weeks old, our ducklings are starting to look a bit like miniature ducks
rather than like baby fuzzballs, but everyone agrees they’re still
awfully cute.  In fact, now that the youngsters are spending a bit
more time on land, I can’t help thinking how much the ducklings resemble
tiny penguins, with their upright posture, fur-like feathers, and tiny
wings.  The duckling in the photo above is flapping its wings —
can you even tell?

Our duck flock did lose a little bit of its ultra-easy charm at two and a half weeks old, though, when the birds started nibbling on strawberries. 
I moved them to a kiddie pool about twenty feet away, but that sterile
water wasn’t nearly as interesting as the pond they’d left behind, so
the ducklings kept making a run for the wild water despite a
thunderstorm that was keeping all of our self-respecting chickens
inside.  I ended up having to erect some temporary fencing to cage the ducklings into a paddock so they’d stay put.

After that, the little
flock settled back down, although they have been spending more time on
land grazing now that their water is devoid of life.  I was
surprised to see that they actually seem to be more
prone to peck apart plants than chickens are — I usually let chicks
have free run of the raspberry bushes at this age, but the ducklings had
to be fenced out since they were consuming too much leaf matter.



On the plus side, the
ducklings come out of their brooder each morning in a rush to catch all
of the craneflies that settled on the lawn overnight.  These
insects, which resemble huge mosquitoes, are very evident at this time
of year since they’re mating, and the ducks are glad to collect the
bounty.  I haven’t seen any of our chickens similarly engaged, so
perhaps ducks do beat chickens in the insect-foraging department…at
least when it comes to craneflies.

I haven’t written much
about our year’s first set of chicks because, at the moment, they’re
largely self-sufficient.  Ever since moving them up to the starplate coop and the pastures I’m slowly developing up there, all the flock needs is to have their water
and food topped off every day or two.  I do shut them in at night,
though, since they’re a bit far removed from our dog’s usual patrolling
grounds and since predator pressure is high on our wooded farm.

I did have to add chicken wire to the base of the cattle panels
to keep the chickens in so they wouldn’t wander the whole area at
once.  Currently, the flock is grazing in their second little
paddock, which is a five-foot-wide tree alley.  The trees are just grafted babies
in our flowerbed at the moment, though, so I’m taking advantage of this
year to build lots of soil health, both with chicken manure (spread by
our helpful fowl) and cover crops
(rye at the moment, soon to be followed by sunflowers and
buckwheat).  Unlike most of our farm’s soil, the ground around the
starplate coop is well-drained (wow!) and low in fertility (boo). 
Hopefully some heavy grazing will fix the latter problem and turn this
into one of our better growing areas.

One of the experiments that has already panned out well was planting comfrey along the fencelines
in this pasture.  Setting out the plant divisions in November gave
the comfrey plenty of time to get its feet under it, so the plants
sprang up with vibrant life a couple of months ago.  Our chickens
are happily pecking the leaves back down, as you can see in the photos
to the left and above.  As we rotate the birds to a new pasture, I
have Mark come through with a weedeater and whack down any tall plants
remaining, including the tops of the comfrey plants.  Using that
method, I wouldn’t be surprised if the plants keep growing and expanding
all summer.



The starplate coop and
the current pastures are really too big for the ten little birds we
currently have living there.  Which is wonderful!  There’s
nothing that makes a chicken yard feel good as much as under-population.