A New Duck

Because Uncle Butch has been in the hospital, I've been neglecting other news around the swamp. A week ago, I acquired a new duck, a muscovy drake, all white, from a lady in Hubbard Lake, MI who has been raising muscovies for 25 years. He's a lovely fellow and is getting along quite well with my 2 ladies. I was told he was born this spring.


Thus far he mostly hangs around on the deck, in the front yard, or down by the garage doors. A couple nights he decided to sleep in the duck pen with the rouen ducklings, but generally he's been sleeping on the railing with the ladies.

One of my two barred rock roosters will be moving to the farm this week otherwise he would have been eaten. He'll probably panic when I catch him but he ought to be very happy when he discovers there are no guineas or other roosters to pick on him. Plus, he gets his own harem of white rock hens. They're older ladies, but he probably won't mind. I think my FIL is hoping to get some fertile eggs to replenish his flock before they stop laying entirely.

I call him Squash because last month the chicken door fell on him and squashed him like a bug except that he lived. He's my only named chicken. (The one I named Spin Dry as a chick stopped spinning so I have no clue which one he is now.) Squash sure squawked when it happened, and ran under the deck to hide for half an hour when I picked the door off of him.

Rocket and Luna are well. Rocket seems to be enjoying this cooler autumn weather, he has quite a spring in his step for an 11 year old boy. Luna turned 3 on the 11th but we didn't really celebrate as that was the day after Uncle Butch went to the hospital. They are both a little unnerved by the free ranging guineas and chickens, I suspect they'll be happy when the flock is thinned out before the end of the year. There's at least 2 more months of chaos till then.