Ducks.

Last September we brought home 26 Khaki Campbel ducklings.

They were so cute and fluffy and we looked forward to watching them grow and learning all about them.

So its been a year now since they've been living at Daylesford Organics and we're learning more about them everyday.

We do know that they are hardier than chickens, their poo is disgusting and sloppy, they love to swim, they make everything dirty especially their drinking water, their eggs appear to drop out of them wherever they are, they are extremely shy and wont come anywhere near us and we know that we can herd them from one area to another.

We still don't know how to get them to lay in any sort of nest. We have seen them swimming on the dam late at night and have no idea if they sleep there or if in fact they sleep at all.

This is the shed the boys built for them a while back. They take the wheels off it whenever they move it to ensure the ducks don't lay underneath. They don't sleep in it and they don't use the cozy, straw filled laying nest on the right side either.

We do know that we love hanging out with them and their bossy, quacky sisters.

And we do know that there are some women that buy duck eggs off us at market and adore them. They get so cross with us if we forget to bring them their fortnightly supply. And we do know that Chef Hat winning chef Andrew Dennis of A Perfect Drop in Daylesford, loves our duck eggs too. He uses them to make the most divine pastries.

Happy first birthday duckies!

Chooks at work.

Last year this was part of our garlic patch. This year we grew carrots, beetroot, cabbages, kale, spinach, turnips, broccoli and cauliflower here. Until about a month ago we were still harvesting from this plot.

Last week it was finally dry enough for the chooks to be brought down from the bush.

We love watching the chooks when they fly out of their houses onto a new patch of garden.

It doesn't take them long to start exploring their new surroundings.

The chooks will enjoy this area for the next couple of weeks but during this time they will also be hard at work for us. Their job is to eat the insects and the left over vegies, cultivate the soil and fertilise the ground with their poo.

There's Bingo making sure Dave Griffiths from geomtree is one of the good guys.

Every day their houses are pushed further along the rows to ensure their poo is evenly spread.

In a couple of weeks the chooks will be moved on and the ground will be prepared for planting this growing season's crop.

I hope you have a great week wherever you are whatever the season.

Maremmas, Chooks and TODAY.

What do you do when you have 3 flocks of chooks but only 2 Maremma guard dogs to protect them?

You merge 2 of them without really merging them of course.

The chicks are in the silver brooder and their pool fence enclosed yard and the twenty two week old chooks are in their own house with the whole area surrounded by solar electric mesh fencing.

Banjo the Maremma is protecting the little chickies without having ever seen them.

Many of the older chooks are staying close to the chickies. They can probably hear them and smell them.

And for those of you interested in the Daylesford Organics media branch, Channel Nine's TODAY show will be filming its weather segments every half an hour from 6am tomorrow (Tuesday) from Daylesford.

You can also watch it online by clicking the link on the TODAY website.

They will film Alla Wolf-Taska cooking breakfast from the kitchen at the Lake House. She will be using and talking about local ingredients including Daylesford Organics' eggs.

Chicks.

Yesterday Liam was working in the shed when he heard the cheep-cheeping of a strange sounding bird. He hunted around a bit and came across one of the new chicks. It seems they have been flying up to perch on the edge of their fence and jumping over. The shed is about 20 meters from their chick house.

While we are all for free range chooks here at Daylesford Organics, we believe at 5 and a half weeks old these chicks are a bit too young to fend for themselves.

Until they are big enough not to fit through the holes of the solar electric netting fences we have covered their yard with bird netting. This will also stop any hungry birds of prey from getting to them.

Miss Pepper, who has taken to dragging that green thing around everywhere with her, can't quite work out why the chicks are hiding.

And look what I got when I got home from the school run.

It seems we have a microclimate across the road at Bren's parents' block. Our daffs are barely out of the ground let alone flowering.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Chicks, Compost Tea & Eggs.

Those baby chicks are 5 weeks old today.

They are feathery, long legged, independently eating and drinking and starting to do some crazy stunts like flying up to perch on the side of their fence.

At night they go into their house by themselves and all we have to do is close the door. Liam fitted their perches into their house today so they can start to roost while they sleep.

Bren and Liam are playing around with this old cheese making vat today. It has been sitting around at our neighbour's house until recently when Bren asked if he could have it.

He has plans to make it into a compost tea brewer as we have outgrown our old, badly designed one. The fact that this one is open will make it easier to clean and therefore grow the good bacteria and exclude the bad.

They filled it up with water and it leaks so now they using food dye to try and find the leak.

While they are playing around I'm collecting the eggs.

We have roll away egg boxes fitted to all our chook houses. This means that as soon as a hen gets up to leave the nest after laying her egg, the egg rolls down out of her reach. This makes it easier for us when collecting the eggs and keeps the eggs cleaner because the chooks can't peck at them or poo on them.

Taking Chicks Out.

The day has arrived.

The chicks are 4 weeks old today and it's time for them to go outside for the first time.

Tentatively they come to the door to have a look at what is going on.

Come on chickens.

Slowly they take their first steps into the big wide world.

Down the ramp.

When we first moved here Bren found an old above ground swimming pool shell that he knew someday we'd find a use for.

That old shell now gets used once a season as the first fence for the chicks.

Later on they will have solar electric netting fencing but at the moment they are too small and can fit through the holes.

If you guys don't come out I'm going to have to come up and get you.

After a while we gave up waiting for them to come outside their warm house and went inside to have morning tea.

And look what we found when we came back.

What a big day for these chickens.

They get to express all their true chicken behavior for the first time, scratching, pecking, digging and exploring.

Spare a thought for those poor birds that never get to see the sky or scratch at a grub in the ground.