A Step Closer

The SB was home last weekend to work on the duck house. The building extended through Tuesday. We are well on our way, but still not done. Here is a pic. We did get a roof on but without covering (can't decide if we want shingles, cedar shake or metal). Still need to add batons to the board and baton.... And of course the covered run. Which will mean more post hole digging... Which isn't as bad as I thought, as long as you take it super slowly....

EDDA (Estimated Date of Duck Arrival) is May 5-8. There are definitely issues to be worked out. Food. Intermediate housing. Bedding. Water containers. The list grows... I was recently reading an article about ducks for egg production. The Indian Runners are egg producers rather than meat ducks. They aren't really large enough to merit all that plucking. The article said that a well bred duck could produce 250-300 eggs per year. Um, multiply that by 9 duck hens...... OK, I am not panicking, but if you have a little time, you might want to clear a corner out of your fridge before, oh, say the end of summer when the ducks start laying. In reality, I don't think mine are coming from champion laying stock, nor do I expect all of my ducks to make it to production age. I am sure there is much about fencing that will have to be learned the hard way.

I planted out some more beet and chard seedlings this morning. I have bunch of other seedlings that will go in a week or so. These are the warm weather things. Tomatoes, peppers, etc. They won't do so well until the nights are warm, so there isn't much point in putting them out too early. I can keep them under the lights and on the heat mats and probably get better progress....