Blog » Livestock

At webmeadow HQ, we like it when our animals are happy. Food, water, shelter, sure those are all great. But what are we doing for fun? For the baby ducks, that's pretty easy -- water. Baby chickens, it turns out, need two things to be happy: dirt, and sticks. They like to, uh, "clean" in little patches of dirt, and to scratch in them for... well, frankly, for more dirt. They are too small to make any real bug-finding progress.

Sticks: now there's the real fun! If you prop up a nice sturdy stick, it does not take very long before the little chicks find it and make their way up. Sometimes they hang out at the top, but mostly they jump off and flap their little wings and fall like rocks* to the grass below. And then climb up, and jump again. Whee!

* That is not quite true. Rocks don't bounce like that at all.

Now, for the 12-year-old in all of us, a joke:

Guess what??

Yesirree folks, we've got more baby birds!

Why are they in that plant pot?, you may well ask. I say, Hhmph! You try spending time with the tiniest of baby birds and not posing them in household objects, I dare you! The plant pot has a good view of the rest of the chicks in the brooder (AKA "the purple plastic wading pool"), which makes it an ideal setting for photo ops. If you take chicks too far away from their flock, they will try to make a break for it while you're fiddling with the camera. That yellow one pitched off the edge twice until I brought her a playmate.

We have 4 different chicken breeds this time: Rhode Island Reds (shown above hiding behind the tree), Buff Orpingtons, Barred Rocks, and Silver-laced Wyandottes (shown below, and above if you're looking for a butt-view). Aaron has named the lot of them "Tikka" and "Masala".

The little Wyandottes look like tiny hawks, and are the heaviest of the bunch, weighing in at a whopping 43 grams. We will take some more (and better) pictures over the next few days once the sun comes out. Stay tuned!

Meet Dizzy. As in Gillespie. She was named by the lovely Ivory of Flat Belly Pilates, and I tried to pick the duck with the poofiest cheeks.

You know, we got the geese with the intention of their becoming the enforcers of this little feathered mafia. Many people we've chatted with have childhood horror stories involving aggressive geese, and this breed (Chinese Weeders) are supposed to be particularly territorial. We figured that when random visitors show up (like bobcats, foxes, and the Fuller brush guy), the geese will run at them and scare them away.

In practice, thus far, the geese are absurdly friendly and will happily come over and try to nibble shoelaces and any bits of grass you hold out for them. (They act like it's a huge treat. As if they don't spend ALL DAY on the lawn.) However, today while I was out trying to take pictures of wee Dizzy up there, once they realized who I was focusing on they worked very hard to get between me and her, and eventually settled down on either side of her, pinning her between their big goosey butts.

Today we meet a very special duck: Pixel.  Pixel was named by our pals Chris and Bethany over at Avoca Designs.

On the left we see Pixel hanging out in a very tall patch of grass.  On the right, we see a picture showing the lay viewer how to tell Pixel apart from the other Indian Runners: notice the dark patch of feathers (nay:  pixelated splotch!) by her left leg.  As you can see from comparing her underside to the underside of Siren on the far right, she's pretty easy to spot.  (Ha!  Spot!  Pixel!)

The gang has been having a good time hanging out in the very tall grass lately.  Bruce and Spruce spend all day eating said grass, but the small ducks just hide in it.  You will notice their very protective fence in the background:  as of Friday the 23rd, we have had two bobcat sightings in our yard. No one was hurt (thanks to the fence and the early warning system of QUACK QUACK QUACK), but still. We hate the bobcat. (We also had a small-crazy-puppy sighting last night at dusk when a little black and white dog rocketed around the yard for a few minutes before heading through the woods to the horse barn.)

In other news, we went hiking last week and saw this great little eft! I love the efts, because they are so small (this one was the size of a car key) and so very bright orange.

As you can see, the little ones believe the solar panels to be a place of respite from the sun.  Or perhaps from hawks.  Either way, they hang out under there during the middle of the day.

In vaguely-related news, the New Hampshire's state legislature passed a bill recently (House Bill 1628) so that any grid-tied systems (PV, wind, or micro-hydro) can get $3/watt for their system -- up to $6000, or 50% of the system cost (whichever is less).  That is tres cool, because NH has been seriously lagging on the whole rebate front.

Alright, back to the birds.  The baby ducks have almost a full set of feathers now, though they are still only about 50% of their full-grown size.  Bruce is 85% better (still limping a little), and is again running around like a crazy goose.  The geese are growing noticeably slower than the ducks, and Spruce is only just now starting to get real feathers on her belly (the first place real feathers grow).

I am really sad that the camera focused on the near-grass instead of the far-goose, but I will show you this picture of Bruce anyway.  If you have met Bruce, you know that this is picture captures alot about his personality.  Namely, "GRASS.  GRASS FOR ME."

We went out the other day and ended up on a trail that was still covered in snow.   This is an odd time of year to hike -- trails are either still snowy, or very muddy.  This one happened to be both!  We soon realized that we were not the only ones using the trail:

At some point a few nights ago he stumbled on himself in the night and started limping.  We're not sure if it's a sprain or a pinched nerve or what, but it doesn't really matter because all bird injuries are treated the same:  keep the bird warm and fed and don't let them limp around all over the place.  So Bruce is in prison.  He's getting better; he gets water therapy (AKA a warm bath) every day where he can use his leg a little without putting any weight on it. 

He doesn't mind prison too much because all of the other birds sleep right near his prison walls when they're outside together, and he's got grass to eat.  He doesn't mind much of anything as long as there's fresh green grass to munch on.

Meet Siren:

Siren has been named by our pals at Stokefire.  I believe that they were thinking of the sultry Greek sirens.  We were thinking, Oh Wow you're loud.  Indian Runners have slightly higher anxiety levels than many other breeds of duck.  They are prone to peeping (and later quacking) at such varied threats as chickadees, far-off crows, and grass.

In related news, the older ducks have started laying eggs again.  We have 4 adult ducks, so we've been getting 4 eggs each morning.  Except yesterday we got 5.  Someone must have had a loooong day.  Below is a comparison picture:  white duck egg on the left, brown chicken egg on the right.

Other than the size (which, for the record, is 3.2 oz compared to the standard chicken egg of 2 oz), they're pretty much the same.  Tasty and fresh, with yolks that are almost impossible to cook all the way through.  We're excited to have them be part of our diet again.

Many folks say that you shouldn't let baby ducks into water until they're at least a month old, lest they catch cold and/or drown.  But here at webmeadow, we throw caution to the wind and let the babies in on the first sunny day we have.  In this case, that day was a Thursday. 

They took to the water like, well... ducks in the water.  They jump in, they jump out; a great time is had by all.  I'd like you to notice Bruce's butt in the bottom-right of that picture.  Bruce's butt seems to be in every picture I take, because he is SO FREAKING BIG.  At 7 days old, he weighed in at 13.5oz.  That's a 4x increase over his Day 3 weight of 3.4oz .

Sometimes they like to wash in the water, but mostly they like to careen around like maniacs.

(And in case you are concerned:  they have a nice warm place to dry off, so they don't catch cold.  And because we have a long tradition of using snow toys for watering holes, their pool is a plastic sled that has a nice slope for entrance and exit out of the water.  So no drowning, either.  Splashing, though -- there's a bunch of that.)

Meet Headder:

She is a wee Khaki Campbell, pictured here with a kiwi that is the same size as the egg she hatched from nary 5 days before this photo.  And though it does not quite show in the picture, she is exactly the same color as the kiwi as well. 

Headder was named by Dave Moore and his family.  Dave runs Cornerstone Technologies*, one of our very favorite partners.  Dave points out that the name is "Heather" as spoken by a two-year-old, but I think we can all agree that Headder is a much more fitting name for this little duckling. 

* New website coming soon, courtesy of yours truly!  Keep your eyes peeled!

Next up we have a picture of goose feet.  Bruce Goose feet, to be exact.

There are three important things to notice about this photo:

1. The dude has huge feet. 
2. They look alot like chicken feet, but with webbings.
3. There is very little green grass outside, even though we are quite clearly a full month into the season we call "Spring".

Next time in the exciting world of baby waterfowl:  the first bath!

My friends, the time is nigh!  Meet Spruce:

Spruce Goose.  In the lower right of that picture is Spruce's future boyfriend, Bruce.  Bruce Goose.

Along with Mr and Ms Goose, we got 4 Khaki Campbells, and 3 Indian Runners.  The geese are huge (3.6 ounces each), but the ducks are very very small (only 1.5 ounces each).  You might notice in that picture above that Spruce has a strong resemblance to a pear.

This is one of the tiny Khakis taking a tiny nap.  She does not have a name yet.  In fact, none of the ducks have names!  That is because it is up to our trusted clients and partners to name these lovely little gals.  For a little while now, we've been giving away naming rights to the ducks, so it's up to ya'll (you know who you are!) to come up with appropriate titles for these little ones.  We'll have announcements as the names come in.

Past names have included:  Esmerelda, Biggie Smalls, Cuz, Dre, Boot, Elephant, Guillermo (AKA Ghee),  Mo, Frahnck, Cantaloupe, Penelope, and Cayuga Joe.  So as you can see, silly names are encouraged.  These happen to be girl ducks, but we do not require (or even desire) their names to be gender-appropriate.  (Hey, you know what would be a funny name?  Moniker!)

I realized that none of these pictures have a good sense of scale, so I tried to remedy that situation.  However, it turns out that the wee stubborn ones will not really hold still for poses.

P.S.  After I took those pictures, I put that teacup back on the shelf without washing it.  Don't tell Aaron.