On the 6th of May I picked up the last four of my little chicks and this little duck for my friend Lyleen. She already has two Mallard Ducks and wanted a white one. Addison, her grand daughter, named her Peeps. Peeps is adorable but growing fast just like my hens, Lyleen tells me she has outgrown her first home already and she has to make a bigger box for her or him. The hatchery doesn't sex ducks so it's a guess as to what you get. Peeps is a Pekin Duck, they are usually grown for their meat but not Peeps, she/he will be a family pet.
These are the last of the little ladies for my hen house. There are two black ones and they are Plymouth Bardrocks. They will be the black with white dots. The others are my Light Brahmas, they are the tame variety and are the ones I bought for pets. Both varieties will lay brown eggs. I will keep them separate from the others until they are big because I don't want them to be hen pecked. The Light Bra
hmas will have feathers on their feet. If you look close you can see down on their feet in the picture.
Notice anything different about the dark chicken on the right in the back? Look close and you will see a red waddle starting to develop on her jowls and her comb is really big, fat & red. That's Little Jilly, the runt. It appears that Jilly is actually Jack! Yes, I think I have a rooster in my hen house! I called the hatchery and they said it appears that I do have a rooster and they are sorry that does happen once in a while. So I guess I will have 9 hens and chicken Pot Pie! As I don't want any roosters this will be my first test, can I eat little Jilly, I mean Jack? Should I fry her/him up? Right now it seems a little surreal to me. I know what I've said but that was before the rubber met the road. For the time being I'm just going to watch her/him to make sure I'm right and that I just don' t have an early developer.
All the chickens are still in the garage under heat lamps. The hen house is close to being done. Chuck has to finish the door and we have to install the chicken run and install some chicken wire. I believe it will be finally done this weekend. Does anyone know where I can get a bale of straw?
2 comments:
Oh, I would love a pet duck! However, if I worked at a hatchery (or anywhere else, for that matter) I wouldn't want to sex ducks, either. How exciting that your hen house will be done this weekend! Yay!
(Shaunie) The duck is so cute! I'm excited to see the chickens when we come back through, they'll be mostly grown, right? I'm really interested in those 'pet' chickens.
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