@Canadian Wind
Come say hello to @Canadian Wind who comes to us from Eastern Ontario, Canada and has been a member since July 2022.
Come say hello to @Canadian Wind who comes to us from Eastern Ontario, Canada and has been a member since July 2022.
1. Tell us a bit more about yourself. And is there a story behind your member name?
I think the Canadian part of the name is self-explanatory. I come from Ottawa, Ontario, our nation’s Capital, and grew up across the river in Gatineau, Quebec. I’m fully bilingual in French and English. I dreamt of having a farm since I was a child, and when my family went camping, I could usually be found in the neighbouring fields with the cows and horses! As a teenager, I’d bike to a riding stable about an hour away to help out, just so I could ride for free. They had chickens too, so that was my first introduction to them, not that I interacted with them much. I preferred being with the horses. I’ve always loved animals of every sort (except some insects).
As for the Wind part of my name, it’s actually short for Windermere, an alias I’ve used in various online games since the 1980s. It’s almost embarrassing how I picked it… I needed a name for my Elf character, and looked around the room. There was a fan, brand name Windermere. I’d never even heard of the lake in England, much less all the various other places named that!
I’ve been using it for so long now, I will answer to being called Wind or Windy without the slightest hesitation.
I enjoy all sorts of art, particularly drawing and writing, but also anything I can make with my hands. I love music, and used to play the trumpet in my high school band. I sing, badly. And I love playing online games, particularly the Guild Wars franchise (yes, my main character is named Windermere, lol!), where I enjoy interacting with others in both a social manner as well as through role play (where I act as my character).
When I was in my late 40s, I finally realized what had been causing me so many issues throughout my life. I never fit in, always felt like something was just off with me. When I finally figured out I was transgender, things just fell into place. I now feel comfortable with myself and not like I’m trying to live up to others’ expectations.
I have three grown children (a son and two daughters), as well as three grandchildren (two boys and one girl). I live on the same property as my oldest daughter and grandson, raising ducks and Muscovy, chickens, and rabbits.
2. Why and when did you start keeping poultry?
My daughter bought a house in the middle of nowhere, on ten mostly wooded acres in 2020. The first time I visited, I fell in love and jokingly asked when I could move in. One year later, I had a trailer brought here!
During her second year here, before I moved, she got some ducklings. Three Magpies. I knew immediately I wanted some and started doing research on ducks. Someone had Cayuga for sale, so we went in together and purchased six. That was the start of it. We planned on having them for eggs, as well as meat.
I officially moved here at the end of August 2021.
I learned of Muscovy whilst doing my research. My first impression was that they were ugly, but the claim that they tasted like roast beef had me intrigued. When a local farmer advertised some online for a very reasonable price (okay, they were ridiculously cheap), I got three males and three females. The plan was to keep one male, and the other two would head to the freezer. Since they had a reputation for being easy to breed, it seemed a good addition. They were going to be livestock, nothing else. Until I heard one of the females trilling. That was it, they captured my heart! I may or may not have gone overboard with them since…
From the top, my three favourite Muscovy drakes, Cookie, Pudding, and Mist.
My daughter got some chickens the following Spring. I didn’t really care for them much, after all I had my Muscovy! And then I discovered that people actually gave away unwanted birds. I got my own chickens. And more ducks. And rabbits. LOL! I still wasn’t that big a fan of the chickens though, until going to a local livestock sale and getting Old English Game Bantams. They serve no purpose whatsoever, but are so gosh darn adorable! I love watching them running around with the other bantam and standard. So tiny, yet so perfect!
And now the chickens.
From the top, three of my OEGB, including my favourite cockerel Precious. Second pic is of Fluffy, she's a barnyard mix and about 18 weeks old.
3. Which aspects of poultry keeping do you enjoy the most?
There is nothing more relaxing than sitting outside and having them go about their daily lives around me. They come over and pick mosquitoes off me, or just hang around because they like the company. I can think of nothing else I’d rather (not) be doing!
And then there’s the love/hate relationship I have with hatching. My first experience was attempting to hatch Welsh Harlequin eggs last year and it was a disaster. Mostly all my fault, although the incubator is also partially to blame. Out of 24 eggs, I got two to hatch, and the one duckling that survived had neurological issues. I was depressed and completely bummed out. But then, my OEGB began laying in November. At first, I would eat the eggs, tiny as they were, but I noticed they were fertile. I decided to give it another try! I let a hen hatch some out, and put a bunch in the incubator and made sure all the parameters were good. SUCCESS! And thus started my second addiction, lol! But you may have noticed I said it’s a love/hate relationship. The hate part is mostly due to faulty incubators. I purchased a second one so I could make a bit of money on the side, selling chicks from eggs I bought online. My first purchased egg hatch had gone well, after all. I had a staggered hatch and decided to put the ones in lockdown in the new unit (which had been behaving perfectly, unlike my first one). Disaster! The sensor failed and overheated the eggs to the point of killing them all. I lost about 60 eggs. Needless to say, that unit went back to the store with full disclosure, and I wrote the company a strongly worded e-mail (which they never acknowledged or replied to).
After that, I’ve been struggling along trying to hatch out of my first incubator which while still untrustworthy, I can keep fairly close to temp. I prefer having the birds do their own hatching, though, especially for the longer incubation ducks and Muscovy.
4. Which members of your flock, past and present, stand out for you and why?
This one is a bit more difficult. I do get attached to them, but I also try to keep an emotional distance, up to a point, since a lot of them will end up in the freezer. That’s the down side of self-sufficiency. I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for my first Muscovy, even though none are with me anymore. I traded two of them for some ducklings, and the two I kept disappeared this Spring. That was hard on me. I lost a few over the winter also, which was a brutal one with temperatures plummeting to -50 at one point.
Currently, I have a couple of favourite chickens. There’s Fluffy, named after fellow member Fluffycrow, because she (the chicken!) looks like a crow, and one of my OEGB cockerels whom I brought back from death. His egg was with the hen and had been kicked out of the nest for some reason. It had pipped and I placed it back under her. When I came home later, I found the same egg out of the nest again, even though four others had hatched. Worse, it had been pecked at and the little feet I could see were missing toes. When I picked up the egg, it was cold. I though the chick was dead, so I cracked the shell off. That’s when I noticed the little one was still alive, barely! I breathed on it to warm it up whilst getting the incubator back up. Slowly, he began moving. I placed him in the incubator, and he recovered fully! His name is Precious.
Of my ducks, there are three Muscovy drakes that I adore: Mist, a blue, Pudding, a blue pied, and Cookie, a black pied. But Pudding is my favourite (don’t tell the others!). He just has so much personality! He’s the first one to greet me, and prefers to eat out of my hand than go fight it out with the others (smart boy, but I’m trying to break him of this habit).
And all the ducklings, of course! And several of the females. And the juveniles. Oh heck, I love them all!
Various duck pics:
Top are three newly hatched Muscovy, middle are 25 (!!!) Muscovy ducklings and their guardian (she only hatched out half of them, and stole the others), and bottom are Mocha (back) and Java (front) in their fluffy nest box. I'd sleep on a bed of feathers like that, wouldn't you?
Going to pass this one, I haven’t had them long enough! Nothing in particular stands out.
6. Beside poultry, what other pets do you keep?
Currently, I am owned by three cats (two Abyssinians, blue Skye and ruddy Picco, and one mixed breed longhair, black Tesla), as well as one gerbil, black Lir (the last of three siblings) and a big doofus of a dog, American Foxhound Taiyo. I also have many rabbits that I breed for meat, with one particularly special one, a silver ticked doe named Techno.
In the past, I’ve had many animal species as pets as well as for breeding: peach-faced lovebirds, cockatiels, zebra finches, budgies, a red-bellied parrot, hamsters, fancy rats, degus, more dogs and cats and rabbits, various lizards, and more species of fishes than I can recall! Oh, and not to mention all the critters I brought home and hid so my mom wouldn’t find them, ha! I may have given her a bit of a heart attack when she found the terrarium full of isopods (woodlice, rollie-polies) in my closet.
Various other pets.
Top picture is of myself (in desperate need of a haircut) and 6 year old Picco, middle one is 2 year old Taiyo doing what he does best, and on the bottom is 9 year old Tesla, laying on the dirty laundry!
7. Anything you'd like to add?
I’d like to thank BYC for the honour of asking for this interview, and the privilege of being a member of such a fantastic community! I joined at a particularly low point in my life (I’d just gotten fired) and it gave me a purpose. BYC has also flamed my interest in keeping ducks and chickens, and ignited my addiction to hatching! I’ve met so many wonderful people here. Thank you all!
And now, some chickens:
Literally, Spring Chickens! They hatched at the start of March 2023.
And appropriately, this one is THE END.
@Canadian Wind
For more information about the interview feature and a complete list of member interviews:
introducing-vip-member-interviews
For more information about the interview feature and a complete list of member interviews:
introducing-vip-member-interviews
Ducks are life! Especially Muscovy! 
Thank you for sharing yourself with us Wind, I really enjoyed your interview! 
