Duckies Now Appear to be Drakes!

Our 15 week old ducks that I had high hopes would be female are not quacking, they still sound like males. I cant say I am not disappointed.  One of them is a beautiful light colouration so he/she will be particularly good as a breeder.  The other is more like a Dark Campbell. They are fantastic layers it has to be said. My original 2 Silver Appleyard ducks started laying just after new year and have rarely missed a day. That is a fantastic record and duck eggs are marvelously tasty.

I have two more ducklings at 7 weeks old and they are quacking so at least I have females there I think.

Queen's Diamond Jubilee

Just watching the Queen's diamond jubilee concert and I am thoroughly enjoying it.  Robbie Williams rocks!

Pond In and I'm a Happy Bunny

We have installed the pond and the new filter system created specially for us by Cougar Coatings Waste Water Division. After much deliberation and heartache we found this company and they responded to my plea to let us have a solution to our duck pond.   They normally deal with industrial sized sewage plants but were very happy to answer any questions- however lame - I had about how to solve my problem. Now ducks are very messy creatures, they can turn perfectly clean fresh water into chocolate coloured muck in the space of 10 minutes. Its not their fault, its just that they dig in the soil and then they have to rinse their beaks and sinuses out and consequently all this muck ends up in the water.  They shake their beaks in the water and this flicks all around the water containers and turns the surrounds into a mud bath. Great for ducks, bad for chickens. Our pond was first installed with an Oase filtral 5000, a filter/pump which comes with a clear water guarantee. Doesnt work for ducks, nice clean koi yes maybe, but ducks, definitely no. Our pond is 470 litres and this pump is capable of 5000 litres per hour. Complete rubbish. We then purchased another external filter to filter the filter. Another complete waste of money. The filters were gummed up with feathers and duck grease in a week. Dirty water continued. Most of these fancy filter systems are all designed for Koi and Koi bear no resemblance to the problems caused by ducks. We have installed our new "mini" sewage treatment plant designed by Cougar utilising a Bio-Blok and nothing more exotic than an air pump and our dirty pond is clearing in 9 days. We can nearly see to the bottom of the pond, despite the ducks dabbling in it for the whole 9 days. We added a UVC to the outflow to kill the microbes and nasties that might still exist and hey presto. Healthy water and we haven't had to clean a stinking filter out yet.  If you have a pond problem and need a brilliant filter, you wont go far wrong by speaking to Cougar.  I have to say to Andy Gostling and Dave Ward at Cougar, that you are my heroes. A huge thank you.

Just Been Told Off

Naughty me, husband Keith has just read my blog and he has just picked holes in the fact that it seems to be me doing all the work.  He is at pains to point out that he actually does the bogtrotting morning run and not me. I am too busy getting myself off to work. There we go I have put the record straight and he is actually the sainted man I live with.

Ponds Made In Heaven

Following on from our rain saga.  The two holes mentioned below are now just one hole.  We filled in the old one (for the old pond) and we have now discovered that the new pond hole is brim full of water. It took us a while to think it through....why did we have this much water in a hole when the garden was only 6 inches underwater, surely we hadn't had 3 feet of water in a day or so. Hmmm. It then dawned on us that the new pond was in fact acting as a soakaway for all the surrounding gardens. We had done them all a favour and drained all their lawns nicely. Ours was still a bog and sucking water out of the surroundings like there was no tomorrow. However ducks will be ducks and they love it. A natural pond. There are some unmentionable floating bits in there, but hey ducks will be ducks and they will try to eat anything that floats, grows, moves - anything. The strange thing is that although they are splashing about in a chocolate coloured "pond" they are coming out lovely and clean. Not understanding the logic there because it is definitely not happening to me! The only thing we need now is an outbreak of Cholera in the back garden to put the tin hat on it. We have the landscape that resembles a third world flood disaster. Praying for some rain free days.

Rain Rain Go Away

Yet another gloriously wet, squalley, windy grim day. We have just bought a run for my garden girls from Gardenlife.biz which is excellent, but the garden is so wet we can't get into it to do some work. The duckies are having a ball though. There are no chickens around to bother them and the worms are turning our boggy garden ground into a duck banquet. Once the rain stops...if it ever does...we can clear the ground and put some sleepers down to act as a base for the run. It will also stop the soil that the chickens fling up when they dig from going onto my paving areas. These are not done yet so I am still doing the bogtrotting run in the morning, running round all the coops letting the girls out. The run has a full cover which can be rolled back so they can get some sun if indeed we do live on a planet which can take advantage of such a rarity. The cover will stop the rain turning their run into a quagmire on those days when they dont want to go out and get wet. Don't you think quagmire is a brilliant word? It fits what we have here at the moment perfectly.

Of Ponds and Puddles

I thought I would share a little of my misery with you all today.  The weather is still fowl. We now have two massive holes in the garden.  One from the old pond and one where the new pond is going. As the rain is still pouring down the garden now resembles one of those mud wrestling arena's (I would imagine). Walking past the new pond to get to the gate requires the sort of sure footedness of a mountain goat to get past it.  Of course we have put the soil out of the hole into a mound beside it, but in this weather it offers no grip whatsoever.  If you slip on the man-made land-slip, you end up in the large grave-like hole which beckons for the unwary. Mostly me. I am not happy. What I wouldn't give for a drought up north just at the moment.  Just long enough to be able to put the garden back together.....

If you want to make any comments to cheer me up click on the comments link below.