Survey says.......Ducks!!!

Touché! Bad choice of words I suppose.

Perhaps a better way of saying it... Does anyone manage livestock?

I don't have farm animals, just three kids, two dogs, garden, and 100,000 ish honey bees.
The ducklings are cute, especially the fuzzy headed one. Bad hair day!

Honey bees are definitely in my future. I need to have more time on my hamds to effectively manage those.

Chickens and ducks are pretty small time and because they take care of themselves (apart from food and water) this allows me time to do other things.

My wife wants goats which I am wary of although I am keen on keeping a couple turkeys for thanksgiving. The trick is not to get too attached.

The crest on the duck is actually a deformity. It is caused by an absence of bone.

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chick, Chick, CHICKens!!  Whoa yeah, nothing's better than (free range) fresh eggs, with homegrown honey on toast. The wife and I have raised chicks to chickens. We had 36 starter chicks, that by the time they started laying had been pared down to 18. We've lost some to natural causes, a few to hawks, and most others to raccoons. One mean as heck rooster. Now we 're down to two and I'm feeding em just to keep them from freezing/starving to death. At one point we were giving to other family members 1 1/2 to 2 doz eggs a week. (101 ways to cook and eat eggs) This spring she wants to raise and harvest a batch of Meaties, just for the chicken meat. We also got into Bees. ( Ouch ) bought 2 queens, installed in two hives, feed em all spring sugar water, both hives were doing well and one just "Swarmed" and flew away, so we have one empty and one full hive. Did not harvest the honey last year( too chicken) which was a good thing cause they needed all the honey to survive thru winter. Many had their hives die off due to lack of bee food,  so once again this spring should be a good time to open up and dip into those honeycombs. I got such a good deal on honey at the store I didn't think it was worth the pain to bother my bees or their hive, last year. I got stung enough just mowing the grass around them ( ps we had two ducks also, they were the first to go via raiding raccoons)

Well, I got a scruffy-looking rabbit hanging around...named him Fred and chuck an apple core at him once in a while...

Mark Boesen wrote:...I've raised two kids.

Jeez, tuff crowd, i see somebody dinged me with a negative feed back, maybe i should of said "raising"?

Probably an accident Mark, certainly wasn't me. I wasn't offended at all.

Marleysky wrote:chick, Chick, CHICKens!!  Whoa yeah, nothing's better than (free range) fresh eggs, with homegrown honey on toast. The wife and I have raised chicks to chickens. We had 36 starter chicks, that by the time they started laying had been pared down to 18. We've lost some to natural causes, a few to hawks, and most others to raccoons. One mean as heck rooster. Now we 're down to two and I'm feeding em just to keep them from freezing/starving to death. At one point we were giving to other family members 1 1/2 to 2 doz eggs a week. (101 ways to cook and eat eggs) This spring she wants to raise and harvest a batch of Meaties, just for the chicken meat. We also got into Bees. ( Ouch ) bought 2 queens, installed in two hives, feed em all spring sugar water, both hives were doing well and one just "Swarmed" and flew away, so we have one empty and one full hive. Did not harvest the honey last year( too chicken) which was a good thing cause they needed all the honey to survive thru winter. Many had their hives die off due to lack of bee food,  so once again this spring should be a good time to open up and dip into those honeycombs. I got such a good deal on honey at the store I didn't think it was worth the pain to bother my bees or their hive, last year. I got stung enough just mowing the grass around them ( ps we had two ducks also, they were the first to go via raiding raccoons)

I've collected honey once. I had no idea what I was doing although I was with someone who did.
I didn't wear a suit and was only stung twice. Both times my fault. If you work slow and use a smoker it goes really smoothly.

Racoons, had to dispatch one last year. They are easy to trap and worth the effort. I only lose a few chickens due to disease from time to time.

Might be a good time to plant some fruit trees and a garden. It's a win win!

Ron

Bees are pretty easy. I say that, but I have a buddy that helps me. When all your bees leave and don't leave half the bees and queen cells, it's called absconding. A swarm is when the queen takes off with half the bees after she lays a few queen cells for the old hive to raise up. Keeping bees is amazing. We spun three gallons of honey last year from one first year hive. I have two hives now, that I over wintered. I looked at them the other day, which is the first time anyone here has been stung, besides pinching one while working on the hive.

Cribbs74 wrote:Probably an accident Mark, certainly wasn't me. I wasn't offended at all.

yep, probably right, but in case it was a communist conspiracy i thought i better mention it.

I've heard of Korean BBQ beef, but DUCK!

In my early teen years I worked on a poultry farm looking after 5000+ chickens. I gathered eggs, carried 100 lb grain bags and 80 lb bags of grit up three flights of stairs, cleaned water troughs and cleaned roosts.

You haven’t lived until you have cleaned chicken roosts. The ammonia smell clears out your sinuses like nothing else. The job kept me in cars and after long hot showers - girlfriends until my senior year in HS.

After that experience you would think that I would never again want to see a chicken, but the opposite is true, I love the things. I would have a bunch today. I have six acres here in rural WV but the home owners association says no.

While in Rhode Island we bought the girls ducklings. They named them a very original Donald and Daisy. Came time to leave and I gave them away. They have never forgiven me.......

Those little quackers sure do peg the cute meter, they'll think you are there mom and follow you everywhere. Ha Ha!
If you got two hedgehogs you must have little hogs too, they peg the cute meter also.

I was raised on a dairy farm in western KY.  Aside from the diary herd (we would keep the heifers and sell most of the bull calves), we would raise one or two dairy steers a year for meat; we raised several hogs and had a goat herd of 40 to 50 animals.  We also had chickens and ducks.  Probably 95% of the protein that landed on our table I knew by name; the remainder was wild meat.

I still have the family farm, but have converted to crop only.

Well, if you have to give them names: Kim Jung Un, and Dennis Rodman. But once you give them names, you can never eat them or give them away, as rsv1cox found out!

i also have one duck

but it is rc

We had a couple of orphaned lambs which we reared to hogget stage. MMmmmmmmmmmmm!! Fresh Hogget roast.The rule is: Don't give them names. You can't eat it if it has a name. .

In the summers as a kid I grew up on my Grandparents farm, so to speak. Grandma always named her animals, and when it came time to butcher, she put their names on the wrapper with the year. Never hurt me any, but I do remember her having a milk cow for years and one summer coming down to the farm when she asked me to get a package of beef out of the freeze...... And you might know it said Buttercup on it. We still ate it though.