I've been rather busy over the past week since getting back from London so apologies for the lack of posts recently. I will catch up as soon as possible. However, I thought I would share this with you tonight. The ducklings continue to grow at quite a pace so last week we took the decision that the little duckling house would have to be replaced over the weekend. Quite simply, the ducklings were growing so fast that there would be no room for all of them to fit in if they continued to use it much longer. So on Sunday we went to Durham Hens, bought a "lodge" henhouse (we have 2 already, one for the adult ducks and the other used as a henhouse) and assembled it.
The ducklings were put into it on Sunday evening. On Monday evening, much to my surprise, they made their own way into it. (Their parents needed to be funnelled into their duck house a few times before they learnt to go in of their own accord at sun down.) This evening, I saw some of the hens taking an interest in the new duckling house. When I went over to the allotment at 10.30pm to lock up, there were 6 hens in the duckling house, along with the five ducklings. They all seemed quite settled so I left them to it. If this arrangement becomes permanent, it means we have quite a bit of capacity in the other henhouses. We are hoping that 4 hen eggs we have in the incubator will hatch on Thursday (though I have some doubts any will hatch - more about that on another day). They will use some of the capacity though we won't be keeping any that are cockerels given we already have one (he was one of the chicks we hatched in March). So we may be on the lookout for more hens soon (though we got another on Sunday when at Durham Hens - again, more about that soon).
1 comment:
Ha ha why didn't you get a picture of that?! You'll have to get a turkey next, see if that goes in with them too! I have a friend who keeps chickens, ducks, 3 geese and 2 turkeys, and they all go in the same, admittedly larger than usual, coop together.
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