I solved my dilemma of needing new layers to keep up with ever increasing demand. With my current hens I was getting nine eggs a day out of ten hens, and seeing as one is a mallard, thats pretty good, but i need more eggs. I was going to order nine additional welsh hens and a drake, but ducklings as cute as they are, can be messy until they go outside.
I found a girl who had to get rid of some of her ducks, to order a new breed, so I bought 4 additional khaki hens, and a pair of silver phase Welsh Harlequins. They are all six months old, and just beginning to lay....perfect solution. This gives me a total of fifteen hens! Here are some pics of the welshies, they are beautiful!
This of course meant bigger housing, luckily I had an old 8x10 tool shed beside their pond with a concrete floor, I cleaned it out, added sliding pop doors with ropes to open them from the outside, used some old china cubboard doors for windows, and moved my dome type pvc run on the side opposite of the pond. I can let them outside to roam thru one pop door, or just into their protected run thru the other, plus I can walk in now to collect eggs. My first duckhouse was only four feet tall, and it never failed that they would lay eggs in the opposite corner from the "man door"
Here are pics of their new digs!
Tomorrow all thats left to do is add some gable vents and door vents to the shed.
If you notice my pond, it is fed by two small springs into the pond liner, and I have a valve to flush it, then it falls into the lower old spring pool. Duck erosion on the sides is a problem, so next weeks project, dig the pool deeper, line it with a liner and add a rock patio all around for them.
I found a girl who had to get rid of some of her ducks, to order a new breed, so I bought 4 additional khaki hens, and a pair of silver phase Welsh Harlequins. They are all six months old, and just beginning to lay....perfect solution. This gives me a total of fifteen hens! Here are some pics of the welshies, they are beautiful!
This of course meant bigger housing, luckily I had an old 8x10 tool shed beside their pond with a concrete floor, I cleaned it out, added sliding pop doors with ropes to open them from the outside, used some old china cubboard doors for windows, and moved my dome type pvc run on the side opposite of the pond. I can let them outside to roam thru one pop door, or just into their protected run thru the other, plus I can walk in now to collect eggs. My first duckhouse was only four feet tall, and it never failed that they would lay eggs in the opposite corner from the "man door"
Here are pics of their new digs!
Tomorrow all thats left to do is add some gable vents and door vents to the shed.
If you notice my pond, it is fed by two small springs into the pond liner, and I have a valve to flush it, then it falls into the lower old spring pool. Duck erosion on the sides is a problem, so next weeks project, dig the pool deeper, line it with a liner and add a rock patio all around for them.
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