The Birds

Fowl have overtaken our yard! We like our chickens to be as close to free range as possible since then they get a more diverse diet which make their eggs extra yummy. That was all fine and dandy when we just had four chickens.

In May, I placed an order of four more chickens and three ducks for myself. My eco-art teacher Andree also wanted four chickens for herself so we combined an order. If you dont know anything about chick mail-order, most places require you to get 25 chickens. There is a local place, Mike's Feed, in San Leandro but it's always random on what breeds they have. And I tend to like exotic chickens so i wanted to mail-order.

We ordered from Ideal Poultry which has a $20 minimum order instead of the 25 chick minimum. One of my chicks died in transport so that left me with 3 chicks for myself. They added 5 male buff orpingtons to keep the other chicks warm in transport...sigh....so now i'm raising those for my meat eating friends. I also lost another chick into the sea of ivy that lives behind our property . So that left me with 2 chickens and 3 ducks i was raising for myself and 9 chicks for other people.


After about a month we put them all outside which was fine when they were small but now they are consuming everything in sight. The ducks grew at an incredible rate. doubling size about every week. They've been eating everything that the chickens don't want. Notably the cucumbers, squash, pumpkins and this week it's the artichoke plants. We've been scrambling around trying to get a new fence put in but it will still be another week or two before that is complete.



our neighbors Laurette and Stacy love our eggs and wanted to sponsor a chicken so they could be kept in supply. So we picked up a rhode island red named Ruby from Mike's Feed to add to our bunch. She's still living in a box in the house until Andree's chicks are gone next week. Ruby is probably the most well behaved chicken we've had so far.

For all you urban homesteaders, I wouldn't recommend ducks. They are way more noisy and messy than I expected. They are beautiful and I'll see how their eggs taste once they start laying in a few months. But right now i'm second guessing that purchase.