During the beginning of the pandemic when shipments of fresh food were slow, we bought 8 ducklings. The thought behind this was that we would have fresh eggs, ducks eat 2 pounds of bugs a day on average and their poop is good for the coffee soil.
Like everything we have done since we lost our minds and moved here, we had no clue how to raise ducks. How hard could it be? haha
We now have 24 ducks and often have to rehome ducks when we get a lot of unexpected baby ducklings. 3 of these ducks had bad moms and I had to raise them so the other ducks did not kill them. (Java, Lucky and Boomer)
Java the Duck has a small following and is the 1st duckling that I hand raised. She is very spoiled and funny. She gets jealous, loves to be cuddled and yet wants freedom to do whatever she wants. :) She was born with a bad wing, it is called Angel Wing and this happens either by genetics or bad diets in poultry. Java had a good diet as a duckling and we know it shows up in her genetic line every once in awhile, so one of her wings looks a little goofy and sticks out at an odd angle.
Now, I have 3 grown ducks that still like their special morning and evening dinners which includes peas (frozen not canned!) Rick gave them canned peas once while I was back in the USA and they hated it so much that they refused food from Rick for weeks. They each want to be cuddled daily and will walk into house to find us if they feel they are not getting enough attention.
Our staff can be found fixing Java's wing and tucking it back in or digging up worms and grubs to give to the spoiled trio. Our instagram page has many duck pictures..haha.
We have learned how to trim their wings, which only needs to be done when they keep walking on the roof of our house and get too scared to come back down.
We have learned how sneaky they can be hiding their eggs on the farm.
We learned that some of the ducks just like to hatch things and sit on things. Once we found "Suzie" sitting on a nest with 2 baby mice under her. She was so proud of her new hairless baby mice...sigh.
We learned that the male ducks here do not like to bathe. They are very big and usually pretty filthy. No snuggling the dirty boys!
We learned that having ducks is a lot like watching a daytime soap opera. Not that I ever watched one, but it seems like it would be the same. The cliques change, there is competition to be the ruler of the ducks, jealousy, outcasts, tantrums, moody hormone times, needy and clingy times, bullies.....it has it all!
But the truth is, they are as much a part of the farm as anything else around here is. They are the bug killers which allows us to be pesticide free and they are always entertaining!
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