Farm Additions

Helloo everyone!

In my last post, I told you to stay tuned for a post on farm additions. Well stay tuned no longer! The post is here! 

We have had a few additions to our farm in the last month or so. First off, meet our new rooster, Doodle!

He is a Buff Orpington rooster. We had no trouble at all introducing him to our flock, and within a day or two, it was as if he had never not been there :)  We were hoping that we would be able to hear him in the morning, but unless you have your window open and are listening for his crow, you can't really hear him--definitely not enough to wake you up in the morning!  But throughout the day he crows, and we love listening to him. Sometimes the end of his crow sounds like a broken record! It's kinda funny. Now we have the possibility of having fertilized eggs and can hatch new chicks on our own when we want or need to. Currently we are letting one of our broody hens sit on some eggs; hopefully those will hatch and grow into healthy chicks.

Another addition is that of some ducklings! Here is the story.

Our neighbor had a duck. We named her Inglebert. Inglebert lived with our ducks--with the knowledge and permission of her owner. Our male ducks mated with her. She laid a nest. The nest was in our front yard. The nest had thirteen eggs. Inglebert sat on the nest for two weeks. After two weeks, she got eaten by a predator. We built an incubator. We took the remaining five eggs and put them in the incubator. We overheated the incubator four times. (On accident :) ) We prayed that the eggs would hatch. Hatch day came. No eggs hatched. We waited four more days. One egg began to hatch! It was the only egg to hatch. It was a miracle duckling. We raised the duckling in a box in our kitchen. We let the duckling run around our house. We named the duckling Nibbles because it liked to nibble at our feet. Nibbles grew up. Nibbles moved outside. Nibbles was a female. Nibbles laid a nest. Her nest had eight eggs. Nibbles sat on her nest for four weeks. After four weeks, seven of her eggs hatched. The eighth was a dud.  

So that's how it happened. There were four black ducklings and three gray ducklings, all with a yellow spot on their chest. One of the black ducklings died yesterday; we assume that it got separated from the others and couldn't find it's way back and then possibly died from thirst. Ducklings need lots of water, and easy access to it; this duckling didn't have that when it got separated. We weren't home when the duckling died, so we aren't sure that this is the case, but it's what we assume.

Anyway, here are pictures of the ducklings. Guys, I think ducklings are the cutest things, so I took tons of pictures. Within the week and two days that they have been alive, I've taken about 497 pictures of them! Yikes. I'm just a tons of pictures type of person :) (Ask my fam, they'll tell you)
So, anyway, it's hard to pick just a few of 497 pictures to share with you! Beware.

In this picture, you can see the duckling coming out of the egg. More like it still has half the egg on top of it :) 

The two black ducklings were the first ones born, and are all dry and fluffed up in this picture. The grey duckling beside them however, has just been born and is still wet and floppy. 

I love this picture! 

Mama Nibbles is beautiful, too. The black ducklings will likely look like her when they grow up because she looked like them when she was a baby.

We found Nibbles and the ducklings on our back porch this morning. Apparently, they thought they were dogs or something, because they were standing in the dog dish eating dog food and drinking out of the dog's water container! :)

Stretching

Ducklings have a funny habit of laying their whole head down when they sleep. It's as if they have a pillow! They nod off when they go to sleep, too. Adult ducks nod off, also, but instead of laying their whole head down on the ground, they turn and rest their head on their back. Sometimes they sleep standing on one foot. It's so fun and funny to watch them! Ducks seem to have more of a personality; chickens, not as much. But, I like to eat chicken eggs better than duck eggs, and they are easier to take care of than ducks, so we have a balance :) 

There is supposed to be some more additions to the farm this coming Saturday or so; Another of our ducks, Black Beauty, has been sitting on a nest of her own. She has about six or seven eggs under her. She originally had eleven eggs, but through various mishaps, the number has diminished. 

This is Black Beauty sitting on her nest. 

So, there you have it! There is our farm additions. Now we have eleven chickens--ten hens and one rooster--and fourteen ducks. Hopefully we'll have about twenty-one ducks by the end of the week. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the animals that God has blessed us with! It is amazing to see the natural process of birth, growing, mothering, protecting, etc. that He has ordained in animals like this.  I hope it reminds you that He is in control and has made everything with all that they need--nothing lacking.

"For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him, all things consist." ~Colossians 1:16-17

Blessings,

Julia <3