poultry fancy

So our first borns, the two roman tufted geese are doing well. They are highly imprinted on my voice and will use it to discern between the many dog and other people's legs to keep on track following - Gene around. Here in the photo the hens have come to say hello. None have pecked the goslings, they treat all babies near me with respect now, the chicks are another thing though..... like kids in school, you have to watch them, you can get bullies in the crowd. Introducing the goslings to the chicks hasn't been as easy, the chicks want to peck their feet.

The ducks are really lonely now that the adult geese are gone. The two of them follow me around as much as they can trying to keep up and at the same time stay out of the way of all the bigger animals- don't forget ducks aren't as nimble on hard ground. They go down to the creek now to dabble and bathe which is good, so they won't need a duck pond.

I've decided to get somemore snowy mallards, I believe I have two females on my hands. And along with them, some east indies black ducks and magpie ducks all from Ideal poultry. These breeds are all lighter and better capable of flight to help out in the event they need to scat! Ideal Poultry is the hatchery I'm turning people onto, because they ship birds out on wednesdays instead of saturdays like mcmurray, giving the chicks a better chance of survival. Mypetchicken.com is also good with caring for delivered chicks but their stock sometimes is questionable, like they sent wrong stock with one of my orders and other stock they did send were not as true to breed standards as one might hope......, now i have one hen with a crooked beak from them who has to be special fed to keep weight on, just not the best of stock... so I'm using them again this season only because they are selling barnevelders and penedesencas which I want to use for my dark brown egg layerx. Off the point- point being I'm ordering from Ideal in April- ducks and geese. With geese, I'm ordering some females just to help keep order and add protection for the smaller animals. So a small flock of females- white and brown chinese, pomeranian, buff and our two roman tufted geese, they'll be our flock/gaggle. They shouldn't be as loud, but they will still defend the other animals from predators and not harass the hens like my gander used to- that being the reason I sold them. So I think an all female team might be ok. We'll just have to try to find out. Worst comes to worst, they just have their own section on the farm.

The hens will continue to free range, though I might create separate housing at night for the bantams soon. They really get thrown to the bottom of the pecking order and a special bantam house is in order for them. I also don't want the large roosters on the small bantam hens. Anyway its time to go play outside. All this talk of poultry is just making me nauseous.....