On Thursday evening I thought that I had lost one of my little ducks, Pingu. Pingu is a cayuga cross and should be flightless however she had different ideas! I didn’t realise how well she was able to fly until after two hours of looking for her and thinking she must have become the fox’s dinner she flew down to me from a neighbours tree – 10 foot in the air!
So, Friday she was put into the small covered run and yesterday I wing clipped her which should hopefully stop her afternoon jolies into neighbours’ gardens. When wing clipping for both chickens and ducks you just clip one wing and you only need to clip the primary flight feathers. It doesn’t hurt them and is a bit like having a haircut. Pingu hardly noticed that she had been wing clipped until she tried to take flight about ten minutes after and lost balance so couldn’t take off.
As well as the escaping Pingu I have had most of the duck flock in moult the past week or two. This along with the shorter days has reduced me down from 4 eggs a day to one a day and the oap chickens may or may not lay an egg every three days between them (and I’m lucky if it has a shell!). Much to my surprise a couple of mornings ago I opened the duck house to find an egg I didn’t recognise and it turns out my little duckling Holly is now all grown up and laying, and all at only 18 weeks of age 🙂 I didn’t expect any of the youngsters to start until next spring, but must admit I am happy that I’ll still be getting a few eggs for brekkie in the coming weeks.
Wing Clipping
On Wednesday morning I opened up the hens and our chief hen(balti a rd island red cross) looked at the snow and walked gloomily back into the shed and had a few layers pellets. Meanwhile Pankake another hybrid was laying ,suddenly our golden-line Bramble jumped
into the nesting box, when Panks had layed Bramble started pecking it.I immediately interfered and grasped the egg as quickly as I could.