Welcome to the flock, Carmella, Bean and Hazel :-D

[Valntyn]

 

[Amiga]

Just in the nick of time, y'all, right before Sandy and now Athena. One less issue to deal with.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Hazel seems to be befriending Romy. That is so good. Romy still is not her old self. Not as sassy, a little subdued. She still talks to me and I know she likes me, but her bff is gone. And much of the time, now, the buffs are hanging out together in the pen.

 

[veronicasmom]

Glad things are working out for all.
But I do want to know how the heck you take them out for a walk. Do you really do that? I could just see me doing that, one goes one way, one goes another, three hide behind a tree, I freak............you are one patient lady!

 

[Amiga]

By some grace, the ducks stay pretty close to me (within 20 feet or so). We have trained each other.

I start by going to the gate and saying, "walk? walk?" They come running to the gate. I open the gate, and they pour out of it. Eight times out of ten they go the direction I want them to. If it is mission critical, I get around to the other side of them and redirect them. If it is absolutely urgent that they go quickly in the right direction, I bring a small bowl of peas and they follow me closely to wherever we go.

I walk along beside and behind them, sometimes get around the other side of the flock. I usually carry a walking stick, but often my arms do fine to communicate the direction they need to be going in. We get to some great worming grounds at times, and I just stand there leaning on my stick and watch them nom down. If someone strays too far, I can raise my hand and give her a "come back here" gesture and she trots back with the flock.

It is remarkable. It is a group effort.

If I become concerned about their safety, I speak a loud staccato "back!" and they hustle back toward the house.

 

[Miss Lydia]

By some grace, the ducks stay pretty close to me (within 20 feet or so). We have trained each other.

I start by going to the gate and saying, "walk? walk?" They come running to the gate. I open the gate, and they pour out of it. Eight times out of ten they go the direction I want them to. If it is mission critical, I get around to the other side of them and redirect them. If it is absolutely urgent that they go quickly in the right direction, I bring a small bowl of peas and they follow me closely to wherever we go.

I walk along beside and behind them, sometimes get around the other side of the flock. I usually carry a walking stick, but often my arms do fine to communicate the direction they need to be going in. We get to some great worming grounds at times, and I just stand there leaning on my stick and watch them nom down. If someone strays too far, I can raise my hand and give her a "come back here" gesture and she trots back with the flock.

It is remarkable. It is a group effort.

If I become concerned about their safety, I speak a loud staccato "back!" and they hustle back toward the house.

Hey Amiga hows your weather?

 

[Amiga]

Woke up this morning to six inches of damp snow. It's been above freezing, so more than half the snow is gone. Expect mid 20sF tonight. Breezes kick up from time to time, but nothing more than about 10 miles an hour or so.

How about y'all?

 

[Haunted55]

Just in the nick of time, y'all, right before Sandy and now Athena. One less issue to deal with.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Hazel seems to be befriending Romy. That is so good. Romy still is not her old self. Not as sassy, a little subdued. She still talks to me and I know she likes me, but her bff is gone. And much of the time, now, the buffs are hanging out together in the pen.

I am so very glad to hear that Romy is making a friend but also so sad that she is still grieving. I wish there was some way to fix that for her and you. Maybe I'm in 'one of those' moods tonight but to think of this animal still so sad is heartbreaking.

I wish you both all of the best.

 

[Miss Lydia]

We only got wet snow mixed with rain so it didn't stick around. Good thing it's 27 out this morning ground dif froze. Glad to hear ya'll didn't get it too bad. And hopefully Romy makes friends with Hazel that will help with the grieving to have a friend.

 

[Amiga]

We only got wet snow mixed with rain so it didn't stick around. Good thing it's 27 out this morning ground dif froze. Glad to hear ya'll didn't get it too bad. And hopefully Romy makes friends with Hazel that will help with the grieving to have a friend.

 

[Amiga]

I reckon this is as good a place as any for a flock dynamics update.

Oy.

Everyone is fine. And we were all one flock, until . . . .

Well, some time around Valentine's Day Bean's hormones ramped up, and we had some mating going on. Nothing dramatic, some encounters with his girls, Romy, a couple of runners.

Then one day, Zwei and a few other runners seemed to have decided that this behavior was unacceptable.

Next time Bean was standing on Romy, Zwei ran over and tried to push him off. She was joined by a few other runners. Romy got tired of being the mattress for a sumo wrestling match, and tried to avoid Bean's attention. Well, that just made Bean all the more determined to jump on Romy....

It did not get better.

The Coffees started sleeping in their own space at night, and I split the Day Pen, too. We do go together to the forest garden, where most of the time everyone can keep their distance. We still have skirmishes.

And then, today, there was awful caterwauling from the night pen. I assumed it was Sieben yelling at Bean. Again.

Nope. Romy and Zwei were Sumo wrestling. It did not stop when they went outside. I separated them. Then Romy told me she HAD to go back inside, where she started making those broody cooing noises, and fluffing up a nest around the wooden egg. Ahhh, I see. Romy's on the brood. Big time.

Why this has caused Zwei to fuss with her about it, I do not know.

But we now have three chambers in the night pen. Coffees, Runners, and Romy.

sigh

I have read that this starts to tone down after Memorial Day. That would be nice.

Meanwhile, the runners pretty much stopped laying soon after the Coffees' arrival, and have taken a very long sabbatical. Let's see 10/12 to 4/13 - about six months. I think they're still just so worked up about Bean. Maybe it's the Coffees, but bringing Shelly and Romy in did not seem to halt production for half the year. And, they are three years old, there's no real comparing one year to the next, I would think. They finally did lay a couple of eggs yesterday and today, so perhaps the egg deluge will begin soon.

This is not, by the way, a major problem. We have the space, and I am blessed with a cordless drill, some screws, poultry wire, and plywood. Took maybe twenty minutes to give Romy her own "room." around her nest. She doesn't ask for much, so I am willing to try to help protect her from the harassment of the runners. Dipsy doodles.

So there we have it, we are now up to date on what is turning out to be a drawn-out saga of integrating the flock.