Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck! Duck!
I received a lovely message in my inbox today. A company who supply hatching kits for schools and care homes contacted me as they obviously end up with rather a lot of unwanted young birds. It seems someone who takes their meat strain Pekin ducks off them has let them down so I have arranged to take some off their hands at a very reasonable price. This presented a great opportunity to share this fortune with fellow members of Fenland Smallholders Club. I whacked a message on Facebook and, as I write, I have orders for over 100 ducklings. We will take a dozen or more with the aim of rearing some for the table and possibly some to keep, as long as they don't get so fat that they can't waddle! They will keep the slug population down and maybe give us meat strain birds to hatch out in the future.
Meanwhile, do you remember we were given some commercial chicks to rear? Well they have been lovely so far. They are very tame and run over to see us when we go in the chicken enclosure, though I think this is more greed than affection. So far we have seen no signs of problems caused by their breeding. They are now about 9 weeks old. I suspect that would be that if they had stayed on the farm. But living with the other chickens and allowed to roam their growth has been good but not ridiculous. They will be around for a while longer yet.
