Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[CGilbert]

I can barely wait for spring and even more for summer

I completely agree! I am so done with this weather

 

[Cockatrice6420]

We had not brought the power out to the chicken, garden, shasta  sites. My better half Richard made me a yard light on a post with a power outlet the cord is too long from the garage out that I cannot run my tiller from it, he said we will take the generator out there to till. finally managed to get everything for a garden fence this month also

Yup, we've been doing all sorts of pruning and minor felling to get our natural fence posts. We finished up the last three orchard trees today, tomorrow will be a bit more harvest from the weed trees, then it's just maintaining.

 

[Duck Drover]

Who do you  know in Washington that raises the Khake Cambell  and Indian Runner  ? ducks ?

I don't know anyone with those breeds. They are common so you should be able to find them easily.

 

[Melnurse]

It had been a couple years since I visited but fortunately I had used my tablet to log in and it remembered my password for me. It has taken all this time to prove in a court of law that chickens and ducks are birds! The city of Covington tried saying that our chickens and ducks are the same as dogs and cats so they could impose a limit of 3 outdoor small animals total, which would only allow us one chicken and one duck since we have an outdoor cat. The code for birds went by square footage of living space, limited to 2000 square feet, so technically we could have up to 1000 bantam sized birds. Initially the municipal court judge ruled in favor of the city but a superior court judge ruled that chickens and ducks are birds and should therefore be regulated as birds so the same municipal court judge that ruled in favor of the city reversed his judgement and we were finally found not guilty of violatinv the code for small animals by having more then one chicken and more than one duck.

Because our legal battle has taken two years to make it through the court system, our plans were put on hold all that time. We were told we needed a business license to sell birds or eggs but that was also a lie. We did sell some of our hatches at times but we limited sales to the frequency that would be consistent with yard sales or selling household items on Craigslist. We also made sure to keep any birds we wanted grandfathered in because Covington repealed the code entirely ansd the code enforcement officer rewrote the code with a limit of 5 chickens or ducks and no roosters - tnere was nothing outlawing roosters in the original code which mirrored the King County code except to omit the line about 1 square foot per chicken.

As a result of our battle with the city, we kept far more chicks and ducklings than we ever wanted to keep and now that we have grown out our hatches to see how they look for breeding, we have some serious flock reduction to do before we are drowning in eggs. We have built a cabinet incubator from an oak cabinet so we can try hatching more duck eggs this year but we have excess breeding pairs to sell that will still leave us with our largest flock yet. I believe we need 30 birds to get NPIP certified and 50 ducks to get on the breeder list but we have more than we need to proceed with those goals. My daughter did earn her Girl Scout Silver Award with her service project that we have continued as a non-profit hobby but she was not able to see her goals completed yet.

If there is anyone considering getting ducks and wants the best foraging and laying bantam ducks, we have breeding pairs of Australian Spotted ducks available in all three colors - greenhead, bluehead, and silverhead. We ended up with Silkies to use as incubators before we realized how easy it is to hatch duck eggs in Little Giant incubators so we are raising BBS bearded Silkies for the fun of it and we have a few nice roosters tnat need homes or they will go to the auction. We also have BBS English Orpingtons since we fell in love with the breed when we hatched them to help buy feed year round since they lay non-stop and we hatch them year round to pay for feed. We need to clear out some roosters before we can start selling pullets but we have already decided to sell most of the hatches we kept because we don't need very many when the ducks are really what we love the most. They were worth fighting for but it sure used up alot of resources to fight city government and the judge hired by the city and paid for with our tax money.

I know alot of you have not realized the many benefits of having backyard ducks with your backyard chickens but if you are considering getting ducks I can help you out!

Thanksk for the fight, Duck Dover, as a Covington/Maple Valley resident (who has four chickens and three labradors) your fight was very much appreciated and if I knew you, I'd buy you a bottle of wine!

 

[Chickielady]

Yup, we've been doing all sorts of pruning and minor felling to get our natural fence posts. We finished up the last three orchard trees today, tomorrow will be a bit more harvest from the weed trees, then it's just maintaining.

I just went out and looked at my orchard trees, it is perfect weather to prune...I have talked myself into doing it tomorrow !
One more day to rest & try and get rid of this swimmy-headed cold before I start up the ladder with sharp objects !

 

[Chickielady]

Who do you know in Washington that raises the Khake Cambell and Indian Runner ? ducks ?

Did you PM @blueducklings ?
She has a mess of them, various colors , not sure about Khake Campbells.....

 

[Chickielady]

I am trying so hard to not get this cold from DH !

If I get it & give in, he'll be like "I told ya so"

LOL

So I put on the smile & keep going !!!

GO BRONCOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[pennyJo1960]

nah I am not rooting for either team

 

[Leigti]

I'm rooting for the Broncos.

 

[pennyJo1960]

appears my internet right now is a tad tweeky , when the seahawks didn't make it I quit caring, I sold my two small coops the guy is finally here to get them but the one was connected to my outside rum that started leaning something awful. I gave in came inside to put eggs away after I got it stabilized.