Love a Duck

My chickens are hardly earning their keep.  I get maybe 3-4 eggs a day in the chicken room, and a couple in the hay racks.  My ducks, however, are giving me 4 - 6 jumbo eggs every day.   They are marvelous eggs with giant golden yolks and a thick, gooey egg white.  I bring them in to make scrambled eggs for my colleagues and students.  The kids were suspicious of the duck eggs at first, as kids often are when offered  something new but  they got over it pretty quick.  I thoroughly enjoy the duckies, some Pekins and some Swedish Blues.  I'm not sure what to do when spring comes.  I like having them captured in the barn so I can be sure and get the eggs.  I do love, however, looking out the window and seeing a white line of quackers marching up the hillside.  I give them cracked corn and 18% egg layer feed twice a day.  The sheep are very envious.  I had one energetic yearling ewe jumping into the duck pen to steal their feed.  I put her in with the lambs and moms to keep her away from the ducks.  I can't, however, keep the marauding roosters and chickens away from the duck feed.  I won't deny the free range hens, even though they are hiding their eggs somewhere in an undisclosed location around the farm.   Whenever I can manage it, and it is not easy,  I grab a rooster and throw him in the chicken room to wait for execution.  Darryl Parkinson comes to visit once in a while and kills some for me.   As much fun as the duckies are, they are the messiest animals I have ever owned.  I keep their water up high in a hanging container but they still manage to change it to mud every day.  I change the hay in their pans as the girls love to feather their nests and cover the eggs with a layer of grass.  I'm going to have to change the pen location to a cleaner space pretty soon.  I made Swedish pancakes with duck eggs this morning, with lots of nutmeg and cinnamon. Hmmmmm good, especially with the local NY State maple syrup.  Life is good.