Monday, May 2, 2011

3 ducklings 4 chicks

I mean four ducklings....No wait, five. And four chicks? Please, how about six.

Needless to say, the search for a couple of laying chickens has devolved fairly quickly into me having 11 cheeping, eating, shitting avian friends in my one bedroom apartment.


It all started April 16th when my dad finally caved to my (long held) desire to have chickens back in my life. At the time my dad had honestly believed that he had just consented to some chickens, but already in my head I had added 'and two ducks'. The next weekend we were back looking around the local feed shops for some chicks (this corresponds perfectly to Easter but has nothing really to do with it).

At the second shop we decided on two araucana chicks (they lay blue/green eggs) and two black australorp chicks (who lay brown). It was also here that I picked up my first three ducklings, apparently they don't like being alone, so I got three in case one died so that there would still be a pair.

As far as ducks go, we got one runner duck, one campbell, and one cayuga. The runner ducks stand upright and prefer to run, not walk and the campbell lays almost as many eggs as a chicken. They are all straight run so I don't know which (if any) are female.

At the second shop they had some older black runner ducks which we had seen as ducklings at the first place we went. I thought they looked really handsome and wanted to go back and get one of the black runners. Jay let me. We went back to the first feed store but, annoyingly, they wouldn't let me buy just one duckling so I got two. Jay let me. So that brought the total duckling count up to 5. The fifth one happens to be a jumbo pekin duck so I think it may actually count as two.

It wasn't until the next weekend that we added the final (I hope) two chicks. We added them to the rest of the chicks without telling my dad, but he can count and declared it 'an Easter miracle'. The two new additions are buff Orpington's who are very pretty tan chickens.

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