A (Tail) Tale of a fish

  The  tale of the fish and the ducks.   A sad end to the experiment of the ducks and the fishpond this morning; I hoped that the ducks would confine themselves to eating greens, invertebrates and small fry when I gave them access to our pond. This morning I had the sad sight of two of the larger fish that the ducks had mauled to death in the effort to eat them (they were to big for them to eat). So the ducks are banned from the pond. I am starting to think that the ducks won’t fit easily into the ecology we are trying to balance here in our small (half acre) space!

Ducks and hens get pally!

I have let our 4 ducks in with the chickens (they seemed keen and I wanted to let them feed on the pond for a while)  I was amazed at how laid back both the ducks and chickens were about it - no hassle at all!  The main issue is that ducks seem to be able to eat at 90miles an hour and they are very greedy!  if i let them get on with it they would eat most of the food and the chickens would go hungry.  I solved the problem this time by scattering grain for the chickens while the ducks ate their vegetable and bran mash.  I still dont know which sex they all are but I am confident there is at least one spare male for christmas dinner (not looking forward to doing the deed though!!)

Weather for ducks

Oh no! the weather forcast for the Green Fair day tomorow is wild and wet. Lets hope they are wrong.  Maybe Colchester folk are hardy and will turn out whatever the weather?

Here the duck experiment is progressing: We have put them (4 large ducklings)down in the vegetable garden in the hope that they will do less damage than chickens (chickens will scratch the soil off the deep beds and eat the brasicas and salads).  So far they have nibbled the spinache and I have put low barriers arround the beds with rape and rocket growing.  I hope they will concentrate on eating slugs and other pests hiding around the deep beds and keep down the grass.