New poultry for happyhenz

Well my day is going great!

This morning my new poultry arrived.

I have 6 new ducklings.

3x1week old muscovies

1x3week old muscovy

and 2 tiny week old khaki campbells.

Also 3 new silkie chicks.

2 red 1 white.

Such lovely little guys as always from this breeder.

They are lovely to sit and hold as they are calm and not at all frightened.

The ducklings are a bit scared still but they will settle down.

And the big news is:.......MY BUFF ORPINGTON DRAKE IS HERE!!!!!!!

Yep Charlie arrived with this lot.

He is beautiful.

The girls, Lola and Lottie are in love i can tell. lol.

The older muscovies Polly and Molly are still sitting.

Molly has the duck egg due tomorrow and Polly has stole a chook egg and is determined to hatch something!

What great broodies.

Not bad for a $10 rejects from the RSPCA.

Murphy's law

Murphy's law says if i wnat female mussie i will get all male ducklings!
Yep 6 maybe 7 out of 7 are all boys....*groan*.
so they are now up for sale.
Sad to see them go really but i must make room and all those boys well that would be trouble for the 2 girls come spring not to mention the chooks! lol.
Im getting some new babies this week so fingers crossed for at least 1 girl....
The eggs under the mussies are doing well except we lost 1 of the 2 duck eggs so now down to 1 duck egg 3 chook eggs due to hatch on wednesday.Fingers and toes crossed>
The buff drake already named "charlie" travels from Victoria tomorrow then here on wednesday.
I spent this morning putting up a temp. pen for him and his girls who are now named "Lola" and "Lottie" see now shortage of names around here with all the kids.
Also purchasing a few more baby Khaki campbells this week, again hope for at least 1 girl.
The weather has been horrible and hot and the chooks have taken to sleeping out in the pen instead of the shed, probably has something to do with the mussie girls hissing at all and sundry lol.
Things are moving forward at the right pace lets hope it continues,
New incubator in a month or so and im already looking at breeds of chickens and ducks i want to buy eggs from lol.

The list: Saxony (large or bantam)
Runners (i think coloured)
Elizabeths
Welsh harlequins
White campbells

Silkies
Frizzles
Pekins
Wyandottes
Just to name a few lol.

Im amazed

Ok i just had to share this with you all.
I got these 2 ducks last week and finally they found out what they are.\
Anyway i was going to team them up with my kc ducks but have since been offered a drake all the way down in Victoria.
I thought "theres no way we can take a road trip for a drake".
Then the very next email (i mean right there under the last one) was from my friend who is travelling to vic and asked if there was any poultry i wanted bought back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No joke i almost fell of my chair!
So my new drake is coming in a big case of "it was meant to be" if ever i saw one!
All of this could not have been possible without my favourite website and forum backyardpoulry.com.
I have made some wonderful friends and everyone seems to enjoy helping others with their poultry hobby.
Im so happy that i found this site.!
So i with then have 2 official breeds of chooks Silkies and japs
and 3breeds of ducks, muscovies,khaki campbells and soon buff orpingtons.
Not bad for someone who bought 5 hens for $5 each in August!.

The power of poultry !

Getting sorted

well today i had an email offering me abuff drake for my 2 new girls.
So if all goes well i will turn my bargain birds into a trio of breeding buff orpingtons.So much to do in the mean time. I have to knock up 2 more pens!
I have to move Waddles and Quackers (khaki campbells) away from their mussie mates and into a pen by themselves before they get too comfy *wink*
I also have to sort out the mussie duckling to see what i have and possibly sell off the young drakes.
I will hold onto 1. That will give me a breeding group of mussies.
I have to finish off the Jap and silkie pens (3 japs and 3 silkies are a sharing a pen at the moment) .
I also have to wait and see what i get in the way of ducklings from Polly and Molly and what chicks i get from the eggs i place under both of them.
The eggs are from my hyline hens "Browny" and "Turkin" and from "Fred" my silkie rooster. Should be a VERY interesting cross to say the least.
And being incubated by a duck!!!
The ducklings (if they hatch after all the hot weather) will be one each from polly and molly and by the big mammoth boy i borrowed from a friend.

Fred is not the world's best silkie as he has a single all be it funny looking comb. But he is lovely and sweet.
He runs the yard with 4 hyline hens,2 commerical blacks and 4 leghorn x new hampshire hens.Oh and a retired silkie hen called "wing-wing".
Wingy has never laid in the whole time i have owned her so i think she has done her bit for the chook breeding world and has taken a retirement.
The 3 little silkies are penned up with my 3 japs and i will sort them out closer to the breeding season (non are laying or breeding yet ) although Hercules(my jap roo) did start to chase everyone in his pen last week.
The Japs are 19weeks old and are from a BYP'er.(Thankyou).
They were transported down by another BYP'er(Thanks to you also).
The black and grey silkies(crossed with either houdans or polish a few gens back)are about 12 weeks old and my little white silkie is about 11 weeeks old.
All are very tame.
I enjoy looking out and seeing all my poultry pals scratching happily around and i LOVE to hear my boys crow.
They are locked up at night so they dont crow to early in the morning and annoy the neighbours :)

BABIES DUE IN 8 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy pets

After recnetly rain my front yard is starting to resemble a jungle.

So today i have put out some ducks and chooks in portable runs on the grass to scratch around and eat it down.

The ducks, 7 muscovy ducklings and 2 khaki campbell ducks are out in the very lobg frass.

So far they ahve done a wonderful job cleaning out snails,slugs and my favourite,slater bugs.The bugs provide entertainment as well as food as the ducks chase them through the long grass.

Funny to watch the smaller duckling fighting over snails or the weeds they love to eat.

The japanese bantams and silkie bantams are in the short grass.

They are picking at the seed heads and scratching thru leaf matter.

They also have an array of bugs inclding some small grasshoppers.

Hercules(my little rooster) has let out a few little crows to show he is happy.

And the girls are enjoying taking a dust bath after a few weeks of being in quarrentine(they are newly accquired.)

The rest of my guys are in the neighbours pool yard cleaning up where the neighbours removed their old pool.

A great menu of cockaroaches,snails,worms,slugs,slaters,and spiders keeps them entertained till dark when they will pop back thru the fence and go to bed after the buff orpington ducks take a bath.

And the last of the poultry pals,polly and molly my muscovy ducks are quietly sitting contenplating motherhood.

Their eggs( 1duck egg each and a few chook eggs) are due to hatch on the 16th of January.

I candled the eggs last night and we sure do have some little polly and mollys and a few little peepers coming.

I could clearly see the embryos moving inside the eggs.

Very exciting stuff!

welcome

Hi and welcome!

This is a place where i can post about my poultry and share them with interested folks.

I have chickens and ducks and i LOVE to talk about them.

I will upload pictures of them and tell about any happenings of interest.