Good morning Tara! Well - after listening to your essays religiously, finally something that we might not agree on entirely. Last year we got our first Pekin (not Peking) ducklings. We'd been raising chickens for years but wanted to add some of this delicious protein to our diets as well and had never raised ducks before. We also wanted to have a source of protein that we could reproduce easily. So, last March we picked up our 10 ducklings and we raised them until we could distinguish the hens from the drakes. We processed two drakes and kept two drakes and six hens over the winter. The big surprise to us was what prolific egg layers they were! Over the course of the winter we averaged almost 5 gorgeous big eggs every day from our six hens. No lights, no roosts, less feed than our chickens, easy to herd into their enclosure at night. Last month we ran our first round of eggs through our incubator. 100% fertility and 85% successfully hatched. We have another round in the incubators now, due to hatch next week. At 8 weeks we will process most of these birds as that's the optimal time to avoid pinfeathers and they don't put on much size after that. They will dress out at about 6lbs. We don't have a dedicated pond. We have large kiddy pools that we put drains in so we just pull the plug, rinse and refill daily (that water is pure gold to the surrounding area). We are encouraging many local farms to consider Pekin Ducks as a great addition to their food security plan.
I liked your details about how and why you raise your ducks. Much appreciated. So interesting about the spiders in your barns and coops. Oh my! It makes sense and now I am kicking myself because I just used permectrin on my chickens to get rid of bad lice and also because I had the mites last year.. I wish I hadn’t of sprayed the coop down as I know it will deter spiders too which is now NOT what I want😞. I am learning. But I am not sure how to turn that around. Without using the stuff to get rid of lice. The other thing I am going to try is putting more dry sand so they can dust bath which I know helps reduce parasites. Thanks for the helpful info!
Ohhh my god. Mites! This is the second year we are dealing with them. We lost two chickens last year before I realized what the problem even was. I had never seen them before, let alone have an infestation so bad a chicken could die! Say more about that experience! I’m about ready to burn the coop down and start over with a new one.
So good. Thank you. I love the idea of using Lime paints and I'm trying to learn more about it. (Along with further my obsession with straw bale...) Thanks for all the juicy tidbits of information of all kinds! Much appreciated!
I read the comments before getting a quiet moment to actually listen to your audio so was researching limewashing chicken coops before listening. The internet tells me that hydrated ("builders") lime is toxic to chickens and to make sure you only use 'garden' lime (calcium carbonate). So was interested to hear you say you use hydrated lime. Obviosuly you haven't had any issues with it? Do you think it would make a difference? I have dolomite here which is lime and magnesium so am wondering if I could use that instead too? Who would have thought there'd be so many options for lime 🤣🤦♂️
Hi Tara, thank you so much for all the wonderful information. I was wondering where I could find information on how you created your chicken feed mix if you have shared it somewhere with us already? I am researching it now, but there is so much controversial stuff out there. I am looking into low PUFA, no soy, no corn. We will probably mostly need it for winter as we aim to have chickens free-range mostly in summer through our property. Look forward to your tips!
Greeeaat Q &A sesh! I had the question about pickling. Re: the sweetener question, it was more about whether you add any type of sweetener to your pickling brines? All the recipes I’ve seen add some. Didn’t know if it was necessary to the pickling process or results. Thanks for the time you out into answering all these questions. Love listening to them, even though we don’t have any animals (which I would love to have)…educates me for better conversations with our local farmers.
Thanks Tara my gut (haha micro biome joke) was telling me that the sanitizing could be detrimental but having chicks for the first time I also don’t want to do something so terribly wrong we lose them! I appreciate all the advice!!!
Loved this Q and A. Love hearing about all your farming knowledge! Wonderful wisdom for beginners like us. Wondering what you feed your chickens and ducks exactly.. if it's a mix, what's in it? Or do you mix your own?
Hi Tara! Thank you for all of the wonderful information you share so generously. A question came to mind when listening to the bit about not feeding things that have been expelled from an animal back to an animal. Would you use this same line of thinking when considering a placenta?
Good morning Tara! Well - after listening to your essays religiously, finally something that we might not agree on entirely. Last year we got our first Pekin (not Peking) ducklings. We'd been raising chickens for years but wanted to add some of this delicious protein to our diets as well and had never raised ducks before. We also wanted to have a source of protein that we could reproduce easily. So, last March we picked up our 10 ducklings and we raised them until we could distinguish the hens from the drakes. We processed two drakes and kept two drakes and six hens over the winter. The big surprise to us was what prolific egg layers they were! Over the course of the winter we averaged almost 5 gorgeous big eggs every day from our six hens. No lights, no roosts, less feed than our chickens, easy to herd into their enclosure at night. Last month we ran our first round of eggs through our incubator. 100% fertility and 85% successfully hatched. We have another round in the incubators now, due to hatch next week. At 8 weeks we will process most of these birds as that's the optimal time to avoid pinfeathers and they don't put on much size after that. They will dress out at about 6lbs. We don't have a dedicated pond. We have large kiddy pools that we put drains in so we just pull the plug, rinse and refill daily (that water is pure gold to the surrounding area). We are encouraging many local farms to consider Pekin Ducks as a great addition to their food security plan.
I liked your details about how and why you raise your ducks. Much appreciated. So interesting about the spiders in your barns and coops. Oh my! It makes sense and now I am kicking myself because I just used permectrin on my chickens to get rid of bad lice and also because I had the mites last year.. I wish I hadn’t of sprayed the coop down as I know it will deter spiders too which is now NOT what I want😞. I am learning. But I am not sure how to turn that around. Without using the stuff to get rid of lice. The other thing I am going to try is putting more dry sand so they can dust bath which I know helps reduce parasites. Thanks for the helpful info!
Ohhh my god. Mites! This is the second year we are dealing with them. We lost two chickens last year before I realized what the problem even was. I had never seen them before, let alone have an infestation so bad a chicken could die! Say more about that experience! I’m about ready to burn the coop down and start over with a new one.
Spiders eat mites? I did not realize. I've got lots of spiders! Lucky for me.
God bless Patty!💙
So good. Thank you. I love the idea of using Lime paints and I'm trying to learn more about it. (Along with further my obsession with straw bale...) Thanks for all the juicy tidbits of information of all kinds! Much appreciated!
Hi Tara,
I read the comments before getting a quiet moment to actually listen to your audio so was researching limewashing chicken coops before listening. The internet tells me that hydrated ("builders") lime is toxic to chickens and to make sure you only use 'garden' lime (calcium carbonate). So was interested to hear you say you use hydrated lime. Obviosuly you haven't had any issues with it? Do you think it would make a difference? I have dolomite here which is lime and magnesium so am wondering if I could use that instead too? Who would have thought there'd be so many options for lime 🤣🤦♂️
Hi Tara, thank you so much for all the wonderful information. I was wondering where I could find information on how you created your chicken feed mix if you have shared it somewhere with us already? I am researching it now, but there is so much controversial stuff out there. I am looking into low PUFA, no soy, no corn. We will probably mostly need it for winter as we aim to have chickens free-range mostly in summer through our property. Look forward to your tips!
Greeeaat Q &A sesh! I had the question about pickling. Re: the sweetener question, it was more about whether you add any type of sweetener to your pickling brines? All the recipes I’ve seen add some. Didn’t know if it was necessary to the pickling process or results. Thanks for the time you out into answering all these questions. Love listening to them, even though we don’t have any animals (which I would love to have)…educates me for better conversations with our local farmers.
Thanks Tara my gut (haha micro biome joke) was telling me that the sanitizing could be detrimental but having chicks for the first time I also don’t want to do something so terribly wrong we lose them! I appreciate all the advice!!!
Hi Tara,
Loved this Q and A. Love hearing about all your farming knowledge! Wonderful wisdom for beginners like us. Wondering what you feed your chickens and ducks exactly.. if it's a mix, what's in it? Or do you mix your own?
Thanks!
Hi Tara! Thank you for all of the wonderful information you share so generously. A question came to mind when listening to the bit about not feeding things that have been expelled from an animal back to an animal. Would you use this same line of thinking when considering a placenta?
You all remind me f the word “hope”❤️❤️