- Mar 3, 2011
- 7
- 0
- 7
Hi there! I am Mrs.Woodbaby and my dear husband started our poultry addiction in 2007 when he "rescued" some ducklings from a transient petting zoo at a Reniassance Faire. They were getting too big and losing their cute fuzzy-ness. They turned out to be Muscovys, and so it began. We rescued a couple of more clutches that year (some Khaki Campbells) and added a few Toulouse Geese for protection. Then came the Pekins the next spring, and some crested Khaki Campbells, and more Muscovys.
Then we were faced with having to relocate, and gave over our flock to some friends (after trying to sell them off) as we could not guarantee our new house would accomodate any livestock. But we found a nice place and my hubby swiftly recruited our friends to set up a "huge" duck pen in the far corner of the property. Most of the original flock returned (minus the geese, which did sell), and we set about getting more in 2010. From our local Tractor Supply we got some Khaki Campbell and Rouen peeps, as well as going to several swap meets and getting more Muscovys (which my hubby really fancies), and even a couple of really cute brown Chinese goslings. The flock swelled to nearly 50 members!
Then, in August, a duck went missing.
At first i thought it might have flown out of the pen (Muscovy ducks are fairly strong fliers), but it would soon turn out that something far more sinister was occurring. Soon we were missing ducks every few days. We hired a trapper, and he confirmed there were coyotes and bobcats about the area that he caught on his field camera . Then one fateful night I foiled an attack and spooked the culprit. One duck was outside the pen injured but alive, and as I rushed out with flashlight in hand to the pen, I discovered another injured duck inside the pen as well as one freshly killed. And there were very fresh footprints of the killer- a bobcat. The trapper's attempts to catch him failed, so we bit the bullet and purchased a heavy duty voltage electric charger and wire to put around the parameter of the pen. At that point our flock had dwindled to less than a dozen (not counting the ducklings we were brooding indoors or the geese- which now included 2 White Chinese boys and a single surviving Sebstaphol girl). We never caught the cat(s), but with 10,000 volts running thru the wire now, they haven't been back!
Now it's spring again and my hubby decided he wanted chickens! So we now have a little flock of Black Copper Marans, and succesfully hatched four(of six) Maran eggs we purchased at the same time.
We attached the chicken run to the side of the duck pen and built a huge coop from a recycled work table. So the flock continues to grow (as there are a couple of swap meets coming up next month).......
Then we were faced with having to relocate, and gave over our flock to some friends (after trying to sell them off) as we could not guarantee our new house would accomodate any livestock. But we found a nice place and my hubby swiftly recruited our friends to set up a "huge" duck pen in the far corner of the property. Most of the original flock returned (minus the geese, which did sell), and we set about getting more in 2010. From our local Tractor Supply we got some Khaki Campbell and Rouen peeps, as well as going to several swap meets and getting more Muscovys (which my hubby really fancies), and even a couple of really cute brown Chinese goslings. The flock swelled to nearly 50 members!
Then, in August, a duck went missing.
Now it's spring again and my hubby decided he wanted chickens! So we now have a little flock of Black Copper Marans, and succesfully hatched four(of six) Maran eggs we purchased at the same time.
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