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  1. MilburnCreek

    Natural Hatch....and Mama (and Auntie) were AMAZING!

    I have ordered baby ducklings before, but we never had a 'natural hatch' until today. I am simply amazed at what we witnessed. Our Cayuga mom sat on about 10 eggs for a month, so we knew to expect something, if anything, this weekend. She had taken up residence in a bush next to our house...
  2. MilburnCreek

    Our first home-bred chicks!

    OK, I just have to share! Every year we have purchased a new set of chicks (a different breed each year, so we'd know how old each one was). This year we had a 1 year old rooster, but he was becoming a bad boy, so we dispatched him. Just before we did,one of our Wyandottes became very broody...
  3. MilburnCreek

    Are ducks so dumb they will starve themselves with food available?!

    I have 7 cayugas (1 Drake and 6 hens) that are 6 months old. They have a secure house (built like a fortress) and a pond. All summer and fall they free-ranged and did very well. We fed them small rations of commercial pellets, and they enjoyed those as well when scattered on the ground. Now...
  4. MilburnCreek

    Amazed at how easy it is to "train" Cayuga Ducks!

    We've always raised chickens, and this was our first foray into ducks (twelve). They stayed in our house from hatching until about 6 weeks, at which time we put them into their new duckhouse, with the hatch closed to get them used to their new "home." At week 7, we opened the hatch and let them...
  5. MilburnCreek

    Will ducks " come home" at night like chickens?

    I have had chickens for many years (currently up to 37, because I wanted 8, and well, chicken math...) They free range all day, and as soon as the sun starts to fade, they all head into the coop, and we close them up. But this year, for the first time we are getting a dozen ducks (Cayugas) who...
  6. MilburnCreek

    Alert & Healthy but cant stand or walk?!

    I have a 1.5 year old Chanticleer hen. One week ago she was 'waddling' weirdly, and kept losing her balance, as if she was drunk. I actually wondered if she overdosed on an over-ripe, fermented apple in our orchard. It hasn't gotten any better - but it also hasn't gotten any worse. I checked...
  7. MilburnCreek

    Winter Care Q for ducks in a cold climate

    Hello all, I am a homesteader who is not new to farming (raise several dozen chickens here), and I am looking to start with Cayuga ducks this spring. We have a 1/4 acre pond and plan to anchor a floating duck house in the middle for them, and have plenty of forage area for them. We get rough...
  8. MilburnCreek

    My baby Chanticleers are here!

    Ive waited a long time to find a local breeder I trusted...24 very lively, 2-day old chicks became mine today and I'm psyched! They will join my Buff Orps and Golden Wyandottes....and its perfect timing, as we just landed a deal supplying a local market with eggs for the long-term, and we'll...
  9. MilburnCreek

    Update on Mae West (The Pendulous Crop Problem...)

    A week or two ago I posted about Mae, who had an incedibly large crop and kept jerking her neck around. After receiving some replies, I ruled out generic sour crop and decided the issue was Pendulous Crop. Given the nature of that issue, I decided to try something before creating a chicken-bra...
  10. MilburnCreek

    Chicken with HUGE crop and jerking neck around...???

    I have a 1-year old Wyandotte hen, free range, who developed what looks like two large breasts between her neck and belly (we've been calling her Mae West). She has had this for two weeks, and as she walks around, she is constantly "jerking" her neck around, as if she's having a hard time...
  11. MilburnCreek

    Super-size me!

    OK, I don't get this....I have 5 adult (1 year) Buff Orps, and one of them is laying eggs bigger than ducks or geese every other day. They will not fit in any egg container! They are fine inside, single-yolk, normal shell...but this just started out of the blue after almost 8 months of normal...
  12. MilburnCreek

    Urgent: Fox attack wound

    Our 1-year old Buff Orps were enjoying a typical free-range day at the woods edge, when a huge fox grabbed one and ran up the hill into the woods with her in his mouth. I ran behind them, making lots of noise, and the fox got scared and dropped her. She went flying down the hillside towards the...
  13. MilburnCreek

    Successful Integration!

    For 8 weeks, the babies were in the house, at which point we moved them to the coop with the older girls. We divided both the coop interior and the run with a screen divider so they could see but not interact with each other. Today (10 weeks), we took the screens down. Babies and Old Ladies...
  14. MilburnCreek

    This breed is dumber than a doorknob...

    So, my daughter works at a huge commercial chicken farm, and they were sending some chickens off to the cat food factory. There was one that was smaller than the rest that she had taken a liking to, so the owners let her take it home...which means it ended up with me. The hen is a one-year old...
  15. MilburnCreek

    A new Rescue Chicken...

    Well, we now have a Rescue Chicken. She's a 1 year old, pure white, stocky little Grimaud-Hubbard, normally not sold on the retail market. She was scheduled for the cat food factory, and "an interested party" rescued her and brought her here this afternoon. Our other ladies and our Roo appear to...
  16. MilburnCreek

    Pooling orders to make hatchery minimums?

    Forgive me if this is posted in the wrong forum; nothing else seemed "on target." So, I posted this on a Vermont message board: "I am planning on ordering some chickens from McMurray to be delivered April 15, but they have a 15 chick minimum and I only want 6. If anyone wants to go in with me...
  17. MilburnCreek

    First Eggs!

    I have 7 Buff Orp hens, and they've produced 3 eggs in 2 days...and they're only 5 months and 5 days old! WHOO-hoo!
  18. MilburnCreek

    Finally got La Cage aux Fowls to the point where I can show it!

  19. MilburnCreek

    Surprise!!!

    We have chickens, but decided against ducks because we didnt want to foul our pond and there's too many bold foxes around here...but we woke up yesterday morning to the sound of a mama Mallard and six newborns splashing around. We must have walked around that pond 100 times this spring, and...
  20. MilburnCreek

    We're definitiely Old Men...

    My husband and I finished the chicken run today (the chix arrived two weeks early, and the weather was awful, and we were in crisis mode as we were making makeshift coops in the house!) But, the coop is finished (pix after we paint it), and we finished the run today, and let the eight babies (8...
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