Morning Glory the Attack Duck

It is the time of year when drakes can start to misbehave. The lengthening daylight tells the drake it is time to sow his wild oats and fight off any competitors.

I knew this so I've been keeping a careful eye on our flock of ducks. All had been peaceful and quiet. At least 5 of my 6 ducks have come into lay and the three drakes were busy trying to make all those eggs fertile.    Happiness reigned in duck-dom. 

That all changed yesterday. 

This is Morning Glory. 

This is Hyacinth

This is Morning Glory attacking Hyacinth

Morning Glory decided to ruthlessly bully Hyacinth and keep him separated from the rest of the flock. I have been checking on the ducks frequently to make sure this behavior doesn't get out of hand. So far there has been no blood shed, but Morning Glory is so focused on Hyacinth that he has neglected his conjugal duties. 

Interestingly, Morning Glory doesn't seem to care about Freckles, our third drake. 

Normally Hyacinth is one of the flock's leaders and often leads them all to bed in their duck house at nightfall. Last night Morning Glory chased out poor Hy and wouldn't let him back in. That behavior backfired on Morning Glory, though, because I scooped him up and put him in "time out"(our quarantine/hospital pen)  for the night. 

Needless to say, we are building breeding pens so we can get our drakes separated ASAP.  That way everyone will stay safe and we can further our breeding goals. We've bought the materials so now it is just a matter of putting it all together. 

2013 Plans

We've accomplished a lot here on Gust Front Farm in 2012 and it looks like 2013 will be another year of growth. 

Ancona Ducks

Our main focus for 2013 will continue to be the Ancona Duck. (Read this article to learn why the Ancona is so special.) 

The Man of the House has been hard at work studying duck genetics. This is just the sort of geeky project he enjoys. That is said with much love because geeky is just the way I like my men-folk. ;) 

Our flock currently consists of 6 ducks (four black, one chocolate, and one blue) and three drakes (two chocolate and one blue). 

The ducks enjoying a little late fall pool time

We are going to construct two additional breeding pens and then divide our flock into trios to improve patterning and increase the variety of colors. We'll be hatching for ourselves, hatching to sell to local buyers, and will ship the hatching eggs anywhere in the US. More information about this to come. 

Chickens

I really had my hopes up for a huge expansion in the chicken department, but I'll settle for something more modest. We are consistently sold out of eggs every week. We will be adding a few extra layers, but not a lot. 

The big news is that we will be adding a flock of Cream Legbars. The Cream Legbar is a unique breed of chicken that is a newcomer to the US, only having been introduced from the UK in 2011. Legbars are crested, lay blue eggs, and are auto-sexing, which means you can sex the birds from birth by their appearance. The Cream Legbar was developed by Dr. Reginald Punnett, the man who created the Punnett square you probably worked with in high school. Chickens straight from Punnett = geek heaven! 

My goal is to breed Cream Legbars towards the UK Standard of Perfection. There is no American Standard at the moment, though it is being ironed out. Hopefully by next fall we will have Cream Legbar hatching eggs for sale.

We are going to construct an additional pen for our legbars, more housing, and some garden boxes to fill with green forage for the birds.


We'll be busy!

~Emily, Resident crazy chicken and duck lady