A Pond for the Ducks and Geese! Swales in Action

We installed a swale water catchment system in our orchard area last month.  A swale is a sort of ditch laid on contour. Its job is to collect water, slowing its movement down so that it soaks into the soil and forms a "lens" of stored water beneath a berm. Anything planted on the berm benefits from this natural irrigation. You can read about how we installed our swale system here. 

The north swale on the day of installation. Photo courtesy of Steve Moring, Vajra Farm LLC

It has been pretty dry, so we really haven't seen it fully in action until today. As of this writing, we have received nearly 3.5" of rain over the course of about 3 hours. It is clear how useful a tool the swale system is going to be. 

After 3.2" of rain, the water in the swales stood about 15 inches deep

Our swales are relatively shallow because our soil doesn't percolate water very quickly. Depending on your soil type, you may have deeper or more shallow swales.

If you look carefully in the lower lefthand corner, you can see the white overflow drain that feeds the pond.

Our swales not only water the trees and other plants on the berms but they also serve to fill our new duck and goose pond. Once the water in the swales reaches a certain level, it flows into an underground drain pipe that connects the two swales.

The pond filling up! You can see the water entering from the swale drain on the left. The pond was completely empty prior to today's rain. The pipe on the right is an overflow outlet. 

The water then flows via gravity through the drain pipes downhill into the pond. The pond is approximately 20 ft. across and 5 ft. deep. It filled in less than 3 hours.

All we need to do is figure out our fencing situation and the ducks and geese will be able to enjoy their new pond. This is a considerable upgrade on the kiddie pools they've been using!




Note: Some links included in this post are affiliate links. Click here to read our disclosure statement.

How We Monitor Fertility in Our Hatching Eggs

Before I sell any hatching eggs, I have to insure that fertility is high. Shipping hatching eggs is already a risky business and I want my customers to have happy experiences. If fertility isn't close to 100%, I won't sell hatching eggs.

So how do I know if an egg is fertile? There are two easy ways to check.

The first and most obvious way is to stick the eggs in an incubator. After seven to ten days, you can tell if a baby chicken or duck is developing inside the egg by candling it. Candling simply means shining a light into the egg, and it enables me to see if there are veins in the egg. Veins = a growing embryo and a fertile egg. Here's a link to a page that shows what I'm looking for.    

I tend to use a quicker method to monitor fertility at the beginning of the season and as a spot check throughout the year. Here's how I do it:

First, I break open the egg/s I want to check. It helps to check fertility at breakfast time so I have something to do with all those eggs I break open!

A very fresh Ancona duck egg. Look how firm the white is! 

Take a look at the yolk in the above photo. Do you see white dot in the middle of the yolk? Notice that it is surrounded by another circle of white like a sort of halo.

A closer view

Here's a closeup of the same yolk. It looks like a bullseye, doesn't it? When I see the bullseye, I know my drakes are doing their jobs - this is a fertile egg. The white spot is technically called a blastoderm and it would develop into a duckling if I had incubated it.  

 Infertile eggs do not have a bullseye. You can barely see the blastoderm at all; it just looks like a tiny white speck on the yolk. 

At the beginning of the hatching egg season, I break open and examine all the eggs my ducks lay. I only sell hatching eggs when fertility is fabulous and the ducks have started laying like gangbusters. I will never be the first person to sell hatching eggs each season, but I promise you that anyone who buys hatching eggs from Gust Front Farm will never have reason to complain about fertility! 

~Emily, Resident Crazy Poultry Person 

Tuppence's Tale, or Why You Should Name Your Animals with Care

We recently were given the chance to add two more Ancona ducks to our flock and, me being me, I simply couldn't resist. One of the new ladies is this gorgeously marked blue duck named Tuppence. My #1 daughter is currently reading through all of Agatha Christie's novels and thought it would be fun to name a duck after the character of Tuppence Beresford.

We should have known better.

Invariably, our animals have all exhibited the character traits of the people they are named after. Doofenshmirtz the Buff Orpington rooster? He's evil, all right.  Aragorn the Cream Legbar cockerel is definitely in charge while Faramir plays second fiddle.  Lita Ford the Easter Egger was unfortunately a one hit wonder much like her namesake; she is our one and only loss to a predator, cut off in her prime. Of course, there is the conspicuous exception of our Mini Lop rabbit, Snuggles - she's neurotic rather than cuddly - but for the most part, the rule has held true.

I always shut my birds up for the evening right at dusk, but last night I didn't go outside until it was already pitch black. Most of the ducks in my main duck pen had already put themselves to bed. I shone a flashlight around and under the house to make sure there weren't any stragglers and locked them in for the night.

Then I went to the pen where the two new ducks are currently living. Although I have no reason to suspect that they have any diseases, it is still good practice to keep them separate from the rest of the flock for a few weeks. I shone my light around the pen and quickly found Bluebell. Tuppence was no where to be seen.

I felt absolutely sick to my stomach. Had a predator somehow grabbed Tuppence and pulled her through the fence? Did a hawk make its way through the fishing line strung like netting over the pen? The Man of the House and I searched all around the pen's perimeter, looking for any gaps in the fencing. We even lifted the duck house off the ground in case she had somehow wedged herself underneath it.

Nothing.

The Man of the House and I looked at each other with perplexed expressions. (So I assume. It was too dark to see if his confusion matched mine.) Then he asked me if I had counted the ducks in the main duck house when I locked them in.

Well, no, I hadn't. We rushed over to the main pen and shone the flashlight through one of the ventilation windows. The ducks freaked out at the unexpected beam of light, but we were able to count nine ducks.

There were supposed to be eight ducks in that pen! And there was Tuppence smack dab in the middle of the frantic huddle. We had no earthly idea how Tuppence got into the pen, but we were just so thankful that she hadn't become a coyote's dinner that we didn't over think it. We put her back into the proper pen with Bluebell, said good-night, and locked them in.

The ingenious little Tuppence tried to play the same trick the next morning, but this time I was there to see it. She squashed her skinny little body through the tiny gap between the gate and the rest of the fence and decided to go check out the chickens' premises. Thankfully this happened while I was doing my morning bird chores so I was able to intercept her before Wile E. Coyote did.

We moved Tuppence and Bluebell into the pen we raise our youngest ducks in. The extra reinforcement seemed to do the trick... or so I thought. The very next morning I witnessed Tuppence fly six feet into the air, which is easily enough to clear the gate. Anconas are not supposed to fly like that and I've never had one get up more than three feet off the ground.

We've never had a duck do shenanigans like these before. But then again, we've never had a duck named after a very impulsive spy from a detective novel, either!

Take note, animal lovers: name your friends with care.

Puppy Gets a Prolapse: the Causes and Treatment of Prolapse in Ducks (WARNING: Gross Photo Below)

Yesterday was a typically busy day at Gust Front Farm. The Man of the House was off to work early and I was left behind to tend the garden and mind the children and animals. I was filling a water tub in the duck yard and thinking about the day's lessons - we homeschool our four children - when I saw something red out of the corner of my eye.

Puppy, the small duck with a huge personality, had something terribly wrong with her. Our chickens and ducks have always been extremely healthy, so I don't have a lot of experience with avian medicine, but what had happened was pretty obvious even to me.

Puppy had a prolapse, also known as an eversion of the oviduct. Part of the oviduct, the tube that carries an egg through a duck's reproductive system, had been pushed out of Puppy's vent. A photo of it is below. Do not scroll down if you are squeamish.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Puppy's Prolapse

A very agile assistant (my seven year old) caught Puppy and held her while I confirmed my diagnosis. I knew that Puppy would need to be separated from the rest of the flock while she got better, so we prepared a kennel to serve as a duck hospital. I also recalled that Preparation H sometimes helps reduce swollen tissues on chickens with prolapse, so I donned a pair of latex gloves and smeared the everted area with hemorrhoid cream. Gee, that's something I never thought I'd do! We put Puppy in the kennel and I ran inside to consult my well-used copy of Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks.

What I read was rather dismal:

"Possible causes include obesity, premature egg production, over-sized eggs, excessive mating, and prolonged egg production..... An ailing duck can be saved only if she is discovered relatively soon after the oviduct is dislodged and if prompt action is taken." 

Crud. 

The book suggested cleaning the oviduct with warm water and keeping the tissue moist with mineral oil, however, " if the oviduct is pushed back into place, it will come back out unless a few ... sutures are placed in the vent...." (Holderread, 291)

Puppy needed to see a vet ASAP. A few hours later, Puppy was back at home with her bottom sewn back up, (almost) good as new. The vet said that the prolapse went in easily and they held it in place with a few dissolvable sutures. It was a quick and relatively cheap procedure. (It cost a grand total of $17.)

Puppy in mid-quack, post-procedure

Although her prolapse was sewn back in, Puppy will have to remain in her kennel for a few more days. At the moment, we have no way of keeping her away from the drakes, and they could cause her oviduct to prolapse again if (when) they tried to mate with her. We are actually in the middle of constructing some new duck pens, so thankfully Puppy's quarantine will be of short duration. Storey's Guide also recommends trying to keep ducks that are recovering from prolapse from laying eggs for at least 3 months. I'm not exactly sure how to do that, but I will switch her from layer feed to the same mix I feed my ducklings (unmedicated chick feed, brewer's yeast, rolled oats, and grit).

Puppy laid this egg the day after her surgery

We are pretty sure that Puppy had a prolapse due to over-mating. We have three drakes running with 6 ducks, but the ideal ratio of drakes to ducks is 1:3. Our new breeding pen arrangement should help prevent this problem.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that Puppy makes a full recovery. She's complaining about her hospitalization quite loudly, which I think is a positive sign!
Update: Puppy made a full recovery! She remains a beloved member of our flock, though we do not breed with her any more.

Experimenting with a Broody Hen. Warning: Contains Graphic "Eggtopsy" Photos

We have two Buff Orpington hens. The one my girls call Goldilocks has been broody since right after Thanksgiving. A broody hen is one that wants to become a mama. They sit on eggs with rabid determination and oftentimes will aggressively repel any hand that seeks to remove the eggs they are sitting on.

Broody Goldilocks

Goldilocks is a pretty laid-back broody, but she is extremely dedicated. To the best of my knowledge, she gets off the nest but one or two times a day to sneak a quick drink and snack. I've employed every trick in the book to break her of her broodiness and coax her back into egg production, but it has continued for over two months now. Broodies stop laying and they are of little use to a person who doesn't need eggs incubated.

While this drama was unfolding in the chicken coop, all of my Ancona ducks came into lay. When I started to see some fertile eggs in the mix (here's how you can tell if a duck or chicken egg has been fertilized), it finally dawned on me that I could use Goldilocks to incubate some duck eggs. We weren't planning to hatch a bunch of ducklings until after our Cream Legbar chicks leave the brooder, but surely a handful of ducklings wouldn't hurt anything, right?

I put five freshly laid Ancona duck eggs under Goldilocks on February 20th. Their potential due date would be in 28 days - March 20th.

Brr! Snow didn't stop this mama

The next day we had a huge snow storm and snow sifted in through the cracks around the nest box door. It didn't stop Goldilocks, but I did brush the snow off her tail.

I paid a close attention to Goldilocks over the next week. She seemed to do a good job, though sometimes she would get back into the wrong nest after one of her short food/water/pooping excursions. That is why it is best to separate a broody hen into their own coop, but we were just winging it. I also wondered if she was turning the eggs appropriately since they really didn't seem to change positions in the nest.

I candled the eggs after seven days had past. I was pretty sure that two of the eggs were infertile as they showed no signs of development, but I decided to give them a couple of extra days just in case my candling skills weren't up to par.

Eleven days after I put the eggs under Goldilocks, I walked into the coop to find that four of the eggs were pushed out of the nest box and lay cold on the coop floor. Sometimes a broody hen will discard eggs that she knows are dead, so I took them indoors and candled them.

Two of the eggs were the infertile ones. The other two had some development.

I had to open those eggs and see what I could learn. I steeled myself for something really yucky and smelly, but I shouldn't have worried. I found it really interesting to see how much had changed inside those eggs in just 11 short days.



WARNING - IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE DUCK EMBRYOS, DO NOT SCROLL DOWN ANY FURTHER.


I have opened other eggs in the past that failed during incubation. All of them had blood rings like in the photo below.

A blood ring indicates an early death of the embryo
Image source: http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/avian/pfs32.htm

A blood ring means that the embryo died early on in the development process.  I knew that there would be when I opened these two eggs because I saw a lot more than just a ring when I candled them.

This is what was inside egg #1. Click on the photo if you would like to see it up close.

Duck embryo after 11 days of development. You can see the eyes, beginnings of wings and legs, and
where the veins attach to the abdomen.

The embryo is encased in a membrane and had an extensive blood supply network

The second egg had obviously died a bit earlier than the first one. It had less veining and appeared to be decomposing a bit.

Egg #2 quit a bit earlier than Egg #1

This was absolutely fascinating to me. I wish the ducklings had developed properly and hatched, but at least I learned a little bit about their development. Goldilocks is still sitting on one egg, so we'll see if she becomes a mother yet!

Gust Front Farm is now NPIP Certified!

Our flocks were tested by the Kansas Department of Agriculture today for pullorum, typhoid, and avian influenza as part of the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP). We are pleased to say that they tested clean and that Gust Front Farm is now NPIP certified. Our NPIP number is 48-372.

This won't mean much to you if you are merely a fresh eggs customer. But if you want to buy hatching eggs or ducklings from us, you can be completely assured that our stock will not transmit these diseases. And importantly, we are now able to send hatching eggs across state lines.

We don't have any Ancona duck hatching eggs for sale at this time. About 1/3 of our flock is laying, but the eggs are not yet fertile. When they are fertile, we'll be ready to go!

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