Paradise in Disguise Hobby Farm Blog

This May has been incredibly busy, crazy spring season for us. Here's some highlights from the past week or so. May 23rd, I bought 3 Pekin ducklings to grow out for meat. When I got rid of my Muscovy flock last year, I knew at some point I'd try Pekin, since they have much faster growth rate. Even though the meat is totally different than Muscovy, I thought it'd be worth a try. Plus, who can resist cute little ducklings? I had bought two sets of 3 stacked cages recently, for the purpose of growing out chicks or when customers came to buy chickens, it'd be easy to separate them. And since ducklings are notorious for being messy, I thought raising them in one of the cages would be a much cleaner alternative. And once they're a little older, they'll go out of grass. So, don't worry, they're not going to spend their whole life in a rabbit cage! Even though I have a trio of turkeys, for some unknown reason, I'm having a very hard time...

1/21/16 - A Day in the Life: Photographic Journey through Winter Chores at Paradise in Disguise Hobby Farm In the 45 days since I last posted here on my blog, winter has officially arrived. This past week (1-17 to 1-22), it hasn't gotten above 30*F, and we've had light snow flurries on almost a daily basis. This makes daily "critter chores", as I call them, more of a challenge than in the summer months. The garden hose is frozen, so I fill up 2 water buckets in the shower. Even though I have 4 heated water bowls, they need to be topped off, plus the rooster's and main flock's water rubber dishes need to be filled. But before I can go outside, I put on snow pants, coat, gloves and/or mittens, and heavy winter boots. Because last weekend, it did get above freezing, the snow started to melt, then re-froze, coating all the high-traffic paths with ice! Therefore, I have to wear ice cleats or else I would have fallen many times. The winter mode of transport ...