I have had these amazing ducks on the farm since the first spring we arrived coming on 22 years now. The amount of ducks has come up and down but they are one of the main livestock we always have, the reasons are vast, they are sweet quiet birds, amazing layers, great mothers, taste mighty fine indeed and they also are outstanding fly control

Having said that with my health issues over the past years, the number of them in our keep year round flock has gone down in numbers, shifting from eggs/meat to more eggs/farm bug/small amount of meat, no one local will butcher them, which makes them a home butcher and i have been enjoying buying half or whole beef from down the road.

I quite like having them be helpful working flock in smaller breeding numbers with less butcher but the cost of beef has made it clear that i will need to expand my duck breeding this year. In keeping with this, i am adding in four 2 year old proven unrelated hens that coming from one of the local 4-H, supporting a youth just adds the cherry on top.

I am not at all happy to be adding that much small stock butchering back onto my work load but i will be happy to have a small stock that can be raised on the farm in a great value way, the young ducklings are going to be used to help with bug/slug/snail issues in the gardens, I will be pulling all ducklings at a certain age to go with one hen and let the others go back to egg laying, setting and hatching.. While i know that sometimes i do get three sets per year, most of the time, i don’t let them set more then twice, this year i might go for three, we will see.

A select number of the males will be allowed to grow out for our Mock Beef use, but i expect most will be done at a younger age but time will confirm that. As the cost of feed goes up, there are choices to be made and many of them mean more work to keep the plates filled.

What is your plan to get access to a cheaper protein source, growing more beans to add to rice, more chicken, a pig, hunting, fishing, eggs? If you have space, time an the health to do so, its a good idea to raise, grow more of your own calories for your meals if you can.

I look forward to picking up the new females next week, as the sunlight grows, they will trigger the duck hens to start getting ready to lay again, the first hatches will be the right age to able to go out in the garden tractors.