Here we are… Wednesday’s blog post appearing on a Thursday. Thanks for hanging in and waiting for this amazing update! It’s actually been rather quiet for a while around here. Which, in many ways, is a good thing. While the weather has been rather nice and warm this week, the last two days the winds have been blowing in some clouds from somewhere – but there is no rain predicted. So – we’ll just see what the future holds over the next couple of days.

Monday night we moved Mandrake and his two Nosies (our first ducks) out into their own enclosure – away from the geese and the Apple ducks. There is one of the Nosies that has “water belly” and the bigger ducks and the geese have been really picking on her and running the others around the yard and giving them an all around hard time, day and night. We were afraid that they’d end up killing the one hen, so Monday night we moved them into the enclosure where the Apple Ducks and Octave grew up. They seem to be much more calm and relaxed now. They have their own pools and everything, they’ve been going into the tractor at night on their own. The other hen has been laying an egg every now and then, so we think they’re better off. Poor babies.

Tonight we sequestered a white Delaware hen that we call Squinty, because she squints. She was picked on quite a bit today and we found her hiding her head. Someone had pecked her face quite badly and also pulled on her comb until it bled. They may be picking on her so badly because she is ailing… sometimes they do that when someone gets sick. We put her in the bottom brooder for a while to see what the extent of her illness is. So far – that’s the extent of our current DL. That’s pretty good.

Sue has downloaded a newly updated book by Joel Salatin called “Pastured Poultry Profits”. She’s been learning all sorts of new helpful hints she would like to try. From what to feed the meat birds, how to capture orders for them, to different ways to work within the State’s laws for selling. Salatin is one of the her favorite chicken farmer authors. He has some great ideas and helpful information. He’s also written books on Pigs, Cows, you name it. Give him a google and you’ll see some interesting things. If we end up using any of his ideas from this go around, we’ll let you know.  Until then, as always – thanks for reading!

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Today’s Weather: I talked about this a little bit, but here’s a more deeper dive. High was 73° today. Currently, at 5:45 p.m., it is 63° with 25% humidity and 6mph winds coming from the Southwest. We had a top speed of 28mph this hour. We are expecting an overnight low of 50°. The sunrise this morning was at 6:38 and our sunset will be at 6:21. Noe rain on the horizon.

Egg Report: Tuesday – 40 chicken, 4 duck, 0 goose. Wednesday – 47 chicken, 4 duck, 1 goose. Thursday – 37 chicken, 3 duck, 0 goose.

Cool Thing: Almost forgot. Took this kinda silly slomo video of one of the hens taking a dust bath. Enjoy–