Tuesday

So I've decided to go with Danny, the other spellings were too close to Dannii Minogue for my liking. The grease has all but rubbed off the ducks but I think the name will stick.
I've been watching the ducks closely this morning as Mandy has been getting a little closer to the group and even participating in some conversations. I went and just checked on him earlier as him and Tommy were chatting. I thought Tommy was going to attack him so I stepped in.
The new Young Boy was chasing most of the female chickens this morning (Speedy included). The hens were not too impressed and Old Boy had to step in to protect his bitches. I was really hoping Young Boy would have some of the same gentlemanly qualities as his old man.

Danni

I've taken to calling one of the twins Dani, Danny or Dannii, however you want to spell it. It started today when The twins were hanging out under the car. All of the ducks were (except Mandy) but the two twins managed to get what appears to be oil on them. Danni is the most covered and she has it on her head and wings. I think its oil anyway, its brown and they were hanging out under the car. I don't want anyone getting too worried like its an oil slick with penguins on the beach dying getting trapped in the oil. But its mainly just for colouring. Anyway the name Danni started because I thought of Grease , Grease Lighting and Danny Zuko, Sandy just didn't seam right. I'm not sure if the name will stick around but it may. Danni is the female duck that hates Mandy the most. She's so cute, all of them are.

Mandy & Speedy

Mandy and Speedy are the loners of the ducks. I've noticed that Mandy (and Speedy) have started to hang out grazing underneath this orange tree. Its the furthest tree before the mangoes start again. I think Mandy must like the long grass, I'm not sure. But I'm glad he's got a friend in Speedy. The are the yin and yang to each other.

Saturday morning

I once described Beaker as being 'rough as guts' he used to look so scrappy with his feathers missing, all of his red covering his face, bite marks on his tail. But now, with all of this new feathers he looks great. I'm used to him looking so scrappy that I often get him and Tommy confused. But then I look closer and I realise that its Beaker. All of the ducks look great at the moment. I wish they were little nicer to Mandy, but there is little I can do about that.
Here is baby girl doing a little gazing, it was funny all of the other ducks and Speedy were all huddled under a mandarin tree (I was too, taking photos) and there was one of the girls looking off into the distance. She's an ideas duck.

Farm

While this has little to do with the ducks I just had to post a photo. This is the first time I've succeeded in growing cauliflower without it going to flower. I'm very impressed.
I penned Derek up today to let the chickens run around. Derek was attacking Young Boy yesterday pretty bad, so from now on he's going to have to stay in with Old Boy. I think he'll be right with Old Boy. I understand the roosters fighting (always over the sluts) and while its happened before I just don't really want it to happen while I'm home alone. The fights get pretty gruesome and that's the last thing I want to deal with. So separating them is just an easier option.

Goose

There is a goose that lives somewhere on our road. I often see him grazing on either side of the road. I always get excited when I see him and think that I'd like to pat it. Today as I was driving home he was sitting on the road. I pulled over to see if he was ok, which he was, he was just sitting down. I clapped and ushered him off the road. He wasn't too impressed as he was honking and honking. At one point he turned and started for me. I ran back to the car as I didn't want to get attacked by the goose. He was very loud and quite big, but cute in that goose way. I'll have to carry the camera with me in future so I can get photos.

Derek's outta here...in a month

I just heard a lot of noise coming from the duck area. Immediately I think its the ducks chasing Mandy so I ran over. But instead I saw Ducks sitting around and Derek chasing Young Boy. Young Boy looks pretty quick on his feet, so I hope that Derek can't catch him and kill him. I told Derek "you're so dead in a month mate" and many other things - why do you act like that? no one likes you; Old Boy wouldn't do that; you're numbers up Derek. I'm thinking that maybe that smaller black chicken may also be a rooster. It looks quite tall, but time will tell I guess. I've never been good with telling the sex of animals.

Swimming

As I mentioned the other day I got out the blue paddling pool for the ducks. (The "pond" really needs to be pumped and cleaned). Although they have been getting in and having a bath, I think they mainly just use it as drinking water. Yesterday when I got home, as I was driving up to the back of the house I nearly ran over Mandy. It was a VERY close call, I just didn't see him and then all of a sudden I see this duck move very quickly. I opened my car door and saw it was Mandy and apologised for nearly killing him. I told him to keep a better eye out next time.

Imagine that, me running over my own duck. Sort of funny in a way.

baby girl

My fluffy baby girl. Such a princess. I think she must have thought I had food.

Who's your daddy?

As I've previously mentioned, the new Young Boy looks like Old Boy. So I'm guessing that Old Boy, not Derek is the father. I tried to get a photo of him today, be he wouldn't get his head out of the food dish. Which is so like Old Boy. His modelling lacks a little, but no rooster could work the camera as much as Old Boy does. Here's Derek giving me very little to work with.

Mandy blues

As today went on, Speedy acted less like she was hypnotised and more like her usual self, especially when I brought out the bananas. I took this photo of Mandy looking a little stunned but check out all of the feathers lying around. The ducks continue to malt as they grow all their new feathers. The ground is a wash with mandarins and white feathers. The ducks do look very pretty with their all white feathers and they boys have tails.

The photo below captures most days perfectly. Mandy on one side and the rest of the group somewhere else. They can be so mean to him sometimes. I think Beaker has taken over from Tommy as top duck. I'll have to keep my eye on that.

Saturday morning

Ok so my camera is working now, but I'm a little worried about Speedy. This morning she wasn't her usual self when I fed them breakfast. Normally Speedy prances around the bowl scaring the ducks and eats a lot. This morning she just stood there staring. Even when the two boys were eating she just stood there gazing at the food. I think it was either too early for her and she was still asleep. Or I may have accidentally hypnotised her yesterday afternoon, when I was patting her beak. I thought she liked being patted there, but maybe I was zoning her out. Or maybe she's just feeling a little off colour. I couldn't find her before so I hope she's ok.

Stop Press

I think I may have accidentally killed the digital camera. The button to turn the camera on just isn't responding to being pressed, and the batteries aren't flat as I just recharged them.
So I'm going to have to use the back catalogue of animal pics until I get this sorted.
I was just about to take one of Ralphy as he looked about the same size as Speedy.

Update

It seems i set a few hearts a racing with my previous post. Old Boy is not dead, I was just professing my love for the old bird.

Ode to Old Boy

Oh Old Boy, how I love you. He's such a model even when he's penned up and all the sluts have gone. He's been letting me pat him, although its not like patting a dog, but I'm happy with it. I have taken to calling Young Boy 'Derek' and the new young rooster 'Young Boy'. I heard (the new) Young Boy crow today, it was a little deeper than the other two roosters. I'm not sure if calling Derek is braking the rule of 'once you name an animal it can't be eaten' but who knows. I know I wont be eating Derek, so it's fine.

Biting ducks

For about half an hour today I penned the ducks in with Old Boy. Old Boy went to see what all the commotion was about and I managed to take this photo. I think that Katcsa is the one the left being bitten. It looks like Old Boy's about to fall asleep.

Ducks turf

This is a series of photos. I was trying to take some photos of the new Old Boy and the ducks came down to see what I was doing. (While the rooster is nameless at the moment, he will become the new Young Boy, but he looks like Old Boy. I think he will be Young Boy IV or possibly V.)

Anyway the babies were not happy that the chickens were sitting underneath their mandarin tree.

Sheep

This has little to do with my farm, as this isn't even my animals. But there are some baby sheep near my house and they are just so cute. As you can tell from this photograph of sheep didn't really want their photo taken. But even when they run away from me they are cute.

Mandy slept in with the chickens the past two nights, I think he may have even enjoyed it. I'll have to see how he goes tonight when I put him in with the ducks. I got out the babies out blue swimming pool today, they loved it, the water was so clean unlike the pond. I'm going to try a Speedy egg tonight, should be good.

Speedy's egg-tastic

Oh Speedy, my princess chicken. My favourite female chicken. I was quite the PI this morning and followed Speedy as soon as I let her out of the pen. She must have been busting to lay as she led me straight to her nest. She was not happy at all about me taking the photos so I gave her some room. I went back a few hours later, after I saw her walking around. And there was my little surprise. Unlike the ducks I'm going to let Speedy sit on her eggs and have babies. But not this time, she needs to have her nest in the pen so she can be safe from animals. Speedy will be a great mum as her mum (not me) was a very maternal chicken who laid many eggs. I'll have to start on Speedy pasta.

Saturday

You know I thought I'd raised my ducks better than this. When I come home I see them sitting underneath the mango trees, they don't even get up. I honk the car horn but this doesn't seem to excite them either. Ungrateful little ducks. I guess they're teenagers and I'm no longer cool to hang around.
Yesterday morning I went on my mission to follow Speedy and she threw me off course and went underneath the shed. She knew I was following her as she wouldn't move. It would have been a pretty funny site. Me in my pj's hiding behind a tree from a chicken with my camera waiting for the target to move. In the end I got sick of looking at her peck the ground underneath the shed and left her be. However, this morning no sooner had I lost site of her, she left. i think she' in the tall grass next to the shed so I'm going to go and have a look now.

Hen ravioli

While I'm still in the prototype phase here are some ravioli we made using the chicken eggs. I'm not sure what I'd call this pasta as I normally call the chickens sluts and slut ravioli doesn't really have a pleasant ring to it. Not like the baby girl pasta, that seems so much tastier.

But the pasta was good nevertheless.

I'm yet to follow Speedy, tomorrow morning is the day I become super sleuth and follow her to her nest. I was worried that she was going to start sitting on the eggs today as she disappeared until around 3pm today. But then finally she turned up. I'll take the camera tomorrow and see if I can't find an egg or two.

winter blues

I've never been so excited to see eggs in our chicken pen as I was today. I got four out of the pen and another one on Sunday from Speedy's box. It wasn't Speedy who layed it but the brown hen. I'm going to trail Speedy tomorrow morning to see where she goes to, perhaps her egg stash. This photo is just over a year old. This is Beaker eating some paw paw. Seeing this photo reminds that it must be paw paw season so I'll go and get some for the babies later. Beaker received his name because of the black on his beak, that colouring is long-gone.

Beaker is starting to look better, he always looks quite mangy. But his feathers are growing. So much for my ducks being explorers, the don't even walk down to the house anymore. I'm putting it down to winter and the wind.

Sunday

No one's really been doing much lately. Here's Young Boy doing his best Blue Steel (again). I think Speedy has started laying eggs as I couldn't find her anywhere this morning. She re-surfaced around midday. Although I wont be able to watch her on Monday, i will do so on Tuesday. This morning when I let the ducks (and Speedy) out she was having a dirt bath. I love watching her have a dirt bath. I should have got it on film when she was a little baby.

Raplhy the magpie has been hanging around a lot more with his family. I've noticed that one of his kids is getting large like him, so I've named him Ralphy Jr. I don't think the kids will stay around for much longer as I think its mating season and him and Ralphetta will be starting it all over again.

Mandy update

As I mentioned earlier I was so worried about Mandy last night. At my last check on him he was sitting near the door but appeared to be OK. I set an alarm at dawn to get up and let them out of the pen. I knew if was light and they were up and awake there would be fighting. So when I went out there in my pj's and found Mandy up sitting in his bunk I knew there had been trouble. I'm not sure what time he flew up there or even how he managed to do it, but I'm glad he wasn't too injured. I checked him later in the day as he kept holding up his left foot. His webbing is ripped again but it should be fine. If he rips it much more his webbing will be gone. Tonight when he went to bed he just sat at the door way rather than in the pen. I put him up top again as I think he's not ready to be in the main population. Poor Mandy.

Penned up

I'm a bit worried about Mandy. Tonight he is locked up with the ducks, but not up on his bunk. Tonight he is down with the main population. He's been building up to this for a few weeks now. I think he would have done it sooner if it weren't for that one female duck that just has it in for him. I was watching her today and I think its because she is the least liked of that group so then she picks on Mandy who is even more disliked.
I've already gone out twice to check on him, he's sitting pretty close to the door but I'd imagine he's pretty happy as he's being accepted. I'm going to get up early tomorrow and let them out.

Blue Steel

I've worked out Young Boy, he's like Derek Zoolander only having one look. While he does manage to stand still a little longer, I'm just not into it. I don't know what Speedy sees in him.

Speedys all grown up

Well it was just a matter of time before I saw it happen but when I did I got a shock. I even went to chase Young Boy with the hose but it was over in a few seconds. I caught Speedy and Young Boy mating. I'm sure they've been doing it for ages but today was the first time I saw it. Speedy my little baby orphan chicken that used to sit on my shoulder. I love this photo of her, she really works the camera.

Summer lovin

Its practically summer outside and the babies took a swim in the pond, which I really need to drain and clean. I managed to miss the fun part of watching them swim but I caught preening time. Here's Tommy drying off. Check out Mandys feathers on his wing. Its good to see them all growing back after malting.

Update

While I haven't been ignoring the babies I just haven't been at Hydrorancho to watch the babies. On Sunday and Monday they were put to bed by Jolan. I don't trust many people with duck duty but I slept easy knowing they were under Jolans' watch. She was able to pick Mandy up easily and put him to bed in the bunk. She estimated he was a couple of kgs. When I arrived home I got a full run down of events between Old boy and Young Boy. Old Boy hurt both of his feet fighting through the fence on Sunday so i was a little worried about him. From all accounts Young Boy was being a real arsehole of a chicken and scaring the ducks in their pen. It was decided that on Tuesday we would have cock stew. I was into it as I'm sick of having Old Boy penned and with this new rooster growing up, I'm happy to have a new Young Boy. This one will be Young Boy the forth, or maybe fifth.
However plans changed this morning and there was no time for cooking so he's still around. There is now talk of him going to live down at the neighbours house with his hens. I think our new chickens should be here soon. Speedy is getting more and more hen like with the noises she's making. She is about 7 months old now. I remember when she was half the size of my hand and used to sleep in my jacket. The ducks have been enjoying sitting next to their house.