Five in a Row: Grandfather's Journey

Over the last two weeks we studied two books that take place in Japan: 

Grandfather's Journey and A Pair of Red Clogs. 

Both are excellent stories that D loved to read over and over - and I did too!  That is the mark of a truly good children's story!  Books that my husband and I don't like reading have a tendency to disappear from the house...

We cooked a lot of Japanese food and did a lot of cultural activities between the two books.  

D can easily pick out Japan on a map now.  and trace different ocean routes for travelling to Japan from the United States, thanks to another really wonderful Japanese story we read.  

Here are some of the activities we did as we rowed through Japan!

Grandfather's Journey:

Geography:  We found Japan on our world map and colored it in, and printed a Japanese flag to color.

Grandfather's Journey offered a great introduction to land forms.  Grandfather traveled from Japan, across the ocean and through the American West.  The illustrations show cliffs, the seacoast, plains, rock formations, mountains, valleys, and rivers.  We printed pictures of different landforms for D to color and label and made a land forms book.  He was really into making his pictures realistic and added rocks, trees, bushes and flowers to the scenes.  We also had the chance to talk about how Japan is a series of volcanic islands.  We watched a Discovery video on volcanoes.  We also found a documentary online about how the seacoast is formed and changed by the pressures of the ocean crashing against it.       

Culture: We talked about Japanese music, clothing, and house architecture.  We noticed in the book illustrations how the characters switch back and forth between Western and Japanese clothing as Grandfather and his family traveled.   

 

We cooked Japanese soup and had sushi one afternoon for lunch sitting round our coffee table on cushions, like they showed in the book. We used fresh greens from our garden and fresh quail eggs from our birds.  Neither of my kids really liked the soup or the sushi (more for me!) but they did both try.  While we ate we watched several performances of traditional Japanese dance we found on Youtube. 

 

Social studies: This book was a great start to our transportation board.  Throughout our Kindergarten year we will print and color pictures of the different modes of transportation used in the books and add them to our board.  From Grandfather's Journey we added an old fashioned steamship, a train, and a river steamboat. (we also put on a river row boat like the ones we saw in "Ping")

We created a family tree and talked about the meaning of the word "generation."  The story takes us through three generations: grandfather, his daughter, and his grandson, who is the narrator of the story.  I printed pictures of some of our family members (from off of Facebook), which were not very good quality at all, but it was still a really fun project!  We wrote in other names.  Then added a bunch of different leaves to make it attractive.  It's up on our fridge now!  

"Rowing" The Story About Ping

We spent our first two weeks of homeschooling with the Five in a Row curriculum on the book "The Story About Ping."  Usually, we will try to do a different book each week, but we found so much to investigate, and were just settling into a school routine, so we spread it out over two weeks.

Here is what we did:

We did our geography study by getting out our large world map and locating China and talking about Asia.  I also printed a world map so D could locate it and color it in.  We printed the Chinese flag and colored it.

Our cultural study took up a big part of our time.  We talked about the people who lived and fished on the Yangtze River.  We watched a brief video on the fishing cormorants that we saw in the book.  We talked about traditional clothing, and D colored in a traditional robe after looking at different designs online.  Then he helped me cook fried rice with our quail eggs and homegrown veggies and we ate it with tea on cushions around our coffee table, while listening to traditional Chinise music.

For our nature study we studied ducks of course.  This was made pretty easy by the fact that we have ducks in our backyard.  We made a little book about ducks.  D helped me pick the topics he wanted to include and looked online with me to find the pictures he wanted to color.  We wrote about how ducks "dabble" in the water for food, how they preen, and described their natural habit.  D was really proud to show daddy his book that night.

We also talked about some of the other animals that live in and near the Yangtze River.  We found a great video online that showed many of the different animals and described why they live in the Yangtze River.  Then we found a longer documentary on scientists searching for an endangered river dolphin.  In the end, they did not find any, and the species is now considered extinct.  It was really sad, and D was troubled by the end.  But it was a good opportunity to talk about extinction, pollution, and our role as stewards over God's creation.

As part of our study of literature and for basic reading retention and recall skills, I traced a dozen of the images from the book and cut them out on half sheets of paper.  D then had to arrange them in the proper order adn tell me the story.  Then he colored them in and stapled them into a minature Ping book, so he could practice telling the story with the illustrations.  I also made little labels for parts of the story, including "beginning," "end," "conflict," "action," "climax," and "resolution."  We put them on the appropriate story pages.

For our math these two weeks we did adding, subtracting, and multiplying with duck families.  I cut out about a billion little ducks and D colored them and drew eyes and beaks on them (which was really not part of my plan, but he insisted). I made a blue "pond" with a blue piece of paper and surrounding it with green to be the land.  Then we practiced grouping the ducks into different familiy sizes in the pond and multiplying to find out how many ducks we had.  For example he would make five groups, each consisting of a daddy duck, a mommy duck, and a babv duck.  Five groups, each with three ducks, equals fifteen ducks total.  We changed up the duck groups each time.  He really enjoyed this and we did it quite a few days in a row.     

Our ducks....just four right now but we hope they will also multiply!

Our science study was on oil and water.  We learned about how ducks have an oil gland and when they preen they spread their oil through their feathers.  This keeps their skin from getting wet and keeps them dry and warm.  We printed and cut out several feathers on paper.  One feather we coated with olive oil using a paint brush.  They other we left without.  We dipped each one in a cup of water to see what happened.  The one with oil stayed firm and the water rolled off.  The paper one turned mushy and ripped.  D was so fascinted with the oil and water that for about another hour I let him pour oil and water back and forth into different containers and mix in dish soap to watch the oil break up.  The perks of homeschooling!  Pursue that interest!  Answer all the questions!  What happens if...?  

I think we did a few other things with Ping as well, but those were the big hits.  We had so much fun!  

In addition to our Five in a Row study we also memorize a Bible verse each week (starting this Wednesday it will be with our Awana program at church!), practice phonics and reading with Abeka books each day, and practice handwriting each day.  We also do additional math work a few times a week when the FIAR doesn't really supply good math ocntent (depends on the book).  

Homeschooling Kindergarten with Five in a Row

It’s hard to believe, but I have started homeschooling Kindergarten with my five-year-old son!  (Let’s call him D).  

People have been asking him all summer if he’s excited to start school.  That’s all good and fine, because he is, but they usually ask something along the lines of: “Are you excited to ride the bus?” or “Are you ready to be in a classroom?” or “Can you walk to your school from home?” And then he just stares at them, confused.  

Or they ask me: "Aren't you excited to have him out of the house!?" I tell them I'm homeschooling and quite a few stare at me wide-eyed like I'm nuts (I've had multiple people tell me the best day of parenting was when their kids started Kindergarten and were out of the house) and are embarrassed that they asked me the question.

After the first few encounters with kind strangers at the grocery store, we realized we need to prep D for talking to people about homeschooling. Now he knows he can answer “I do school at home” or “I will start Kindergarten in the fall” to the question “are you going to Kindergarten soon?”

It’s funny because I never thought that strangers would be so interested in talking to my kids about school, so I hadn’t realized I would need to teach him that most people will assume he is going to the elementary school down the street.  We’ve had a few conversations recently about how kids ride the bus, go to classrooms, eat lunch in a cafeteria, have teachers, then get picked up by their parents in the afternoon.  D furrows his eyebrows and looks at me like that is the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.

Since becoming a parent I’ve kept my eyes on education news and writing.  The burden and privilege of educating a child is massive and I've wanted to feel knowledgeable and prepared to make choices for my kids.   

Education and parental influence are the primary factors in shaping a child’s basic worldview.  That seems like a heavy burden.  It is.  There are few things as important, in my opinion, as the way we educate our children and the world view we give them, because it has everything to do with shaping how they think about the world, themselves, morality, and God.  

My primary goal: To frame my children’s education in a way that focuses on God as Creator, and instills (and models) godly character, with the goal of glorifying God in their education and my work as parent and educator.  Secondarily I want my children to have open, curious minds, and love learning and reading. 

As I’ve sifted through homeschool books, magazines, and websites I found that there are a number of philosophies of homeschooling (many of which overlap with other models of education).  As I was reading I could pretty easily tell which ones fit my personality and my goals for my children (whether they will equally fit my children’s style of learning remains to be seen over the years).  Other styles of schooling were intriguing, and I will probably use some of their models in our homeschool, if not following them exactly. 

  

While I’ve done a lot of reading, thinking, and praying about school, and think my husband and I have made a wise choice, I am glad to know that I can always change my mind!  You don’t sign up for a philosophy when your child is five and commit to be faithful to it for the next thirteen years.  You have the freedom to evolve and change and tweak and pick and chose from curriculum and schools of thought.  Chances are, you won’t fit perfectly into one philosophy anyway - I don't- so don’t stress it.

I really appreciate Charlotte Mason’s vision for educating children.  She emphasizes encouraging children to learn through meaningful interactions with the world, excellent children’s literature, and lots of free play and exploration.  She is sensitive to the developmental needs of growing children (which is especially important for boys!) and assures parents that children do not need to sit at desk for hours in order to learn what they should in the younger years.  A 5-8 year old child can learn most of what they need to know through life experience with intentional parents.  Flashcards and copy work not necessary.

While I see a place for establishing disciplined habits in young children, I lean toward Mason’s understanding of child development. Their ability to act like sponges and absorb knowledge and skills without being taught in a classroom setting is evident in daily life.  D is constantly learning.  As a family we try to provide an atmosphere in which he can learn, touch, smell, play, explore, climb, move, help, ask questions, participate in adult activities (like cooking, cleaning, organizing, shopping), and try new things.  

Many recent publications on education (and why American public schools are failing children) reiterate this point. Parents seem to have known for centuries that children learn best through enriched environments and ample play time, but education policy-makers seem to be denying this, pushing for earlier and earlier structured school.  The new push for mandatory preschool demonstrates this mindset. As parents we can reject the notion that our young children should be in preschool learning phonics instead of home developing normal social skills and connecting meaningfully with their families.  But I digress... 

  

For this year we decided to use “Five in a Row,” a literature-based curriculum that sets the foundation for children to love learning and reading.  That is the most important aspect of our homeschool this year and into the future.  I don’t just want my kids to memorize stuff.  I don’t just want them to churn out worksheets and color by number and have neat binders full of checkmarks.

I want to engage and encourage their natural curiosity about the world.  I want to show them that the world opens up to them through good books.  I want them to be amazed by God’s creation and explore it through every portal – from nature walks to mathematics.  If I can instill a love for learning in my children, I will consider their education a success no matter how they score on tests.

“Five in a Row” is based on reading the same book Mon-Fri (five days in a row!) and focusing on different aspects of the book each day. 

You can cover geography, learning about the setting of the book.  As you do this you can also talk about the country where the story takes place.

You study art, looking at the different techniques used in the illustrations and discussing the use of shading, shadows, perspective, etc. 

You do social studies by talking about the relationships in the book, whether between characters or between people groups, between children and parents, governments and the people and so on.

Cultural studies is an important part of “Five in a Row.”  The curriculum purposefully covers books that take place in all different areas of the world.  The most in depth study you do each week will probably be on the culture and time period of the story.

 You talk about literature itself, by explaining the different parts of a story, talking about why the book is good storytelling, and having children identify the important moments in the narrative. 

Each book has one or several science experiments that could accompany its reading.  For “The Story About Ping” we did an experiment where we observed how oil helps water roll off a bird’s feathers.  (D enjoyed this so much I let him play with oil and water in several different containers for about an hour!)
  

Each book also includes several “unit studies.”  When we read “Ping,” for instance, we studied ducks for a day.  When we study “Papa Piccolo” we will learn about cats.   

The idea is to get children thinking about their world and asking questions.  Where is China?  Why is the Yangtze called the “Yellow River?”  Why can ducks float?  What do ducks eat?  Chinese people eat ducks?!  What are they wearing?  How could they live on boats?  Why is their hair like that?

Then you help provide the answers!  

I’m going to blog about some of our studies, since I found so much help planning my curriculum for each book on homeschooling blogs!    I’ll share what we did, how we tweaked the suggestions in the curriculum book to fit our preferences, and show pictures of some of our projects, especially the ones that were a big hit! 

Soli Deo Gloria in homeschooling,

Lauren 

The Fence Project

Oh my. Our back fence is quite the mess.  It's made of pieces of warped chain link fence, a few boards of plywood, some remnants of previous fences (or something...), and a collection of metal and wood poles and pieces of landscaping timber holding it all up.  And not well.  It blows over in the wind.

The big project to complete by next spring is demolishing (disassembling?) this assortment of fence-like objects and building a legitimate fence to one day hold livestock.  Behind this wall of nonsense we have nearly 1500 square feet of dirt (and weeds, lots and lots of weeds) that we've been working on leveling with mulch so that it can eventually be a dry lot for sheep.  We can fence in a 1,000 sq ft rectangle for the sheep as safe dry place for them to stay when they need to be off the grass in the yard.   We'll build a three-sided shed for them to keep them warm and dry in the winter.  Adjacent to the dry lot we'll create an area sectioned off for compost bins for all the nice sheep manure along with garden waste, kitchen scraps, and bird manure.  

Ten Reasons to NOT Get a Backyard Flock

I recently read an article titled “Just Say “No” to Backyard Flocks.”  It came down firmly to the conclusion: “Don’t get backyard chickens you deluded hipster.” It was a little heavy-handed for my taste.

I get what they were after, though.  It’s true that shelters and animal rescues have seen increasing and  unprecedented levels of dumped chickens due to the cultural trend of raising chickens in your backyard.  To be fair, it's not only yuppie, locavore hipsters who are getting backyard chickens.  It’s families.  It’s small farmers.  Its older folks who enjoy watching them while they sit on the porch.  All kinds of people are attracted to the notion of having their own chickens and eggs.

But, the author was wise to point out that raising backyard birds (in my case quail and ducks) is definitely not as easy as it can look in the Williams-Sonoma catalog or your favorite blog or magazine. 

So here is my take on 10 reasons why you should NOT get a backyard flock.  If you are fine with all these potential pitfalls, then maybe raising backyard birds is for you!

1)   Do not get backyard chickens (ducks, etc) if you think they are going to blend seamlessly into a perfectly manicured lawn and ornamental gardens.  They won't.  The beautiful pictures of coops in glossy magazines promise you that no one will notice, hear, see, or smell your birds, their feathers, or their poop.  But they will.  Even if you keep the birds contained in a run all the time, there will be feathers exploding out of the area.  They will poop right out the sides of the wire.  They will scratch and peck and kick dirt and shavings into your yard.  Not to mention you will have to clean the area frequently if they are in a small, enclosed space and not free ranging.  And boy does wet, dirty bedding smell when you are digging it out! Your coop will weather and fade, the wire will need replacing, the grass in the run will be eaten and pooped down in a matter of days; their poop attracts flies, their feed attracts rats.  A well-managed chicken area can still be a nice addition to a yard, but if you envision a perfectly tidy, smell-less, quiet, picturesque Victorian-style coop next to your patio…you might not want to get chickens... at least until you have a better idea of what it really looks like to keep chickens in your yard and are okay with that reality.

Because I don't have $1,000 to spend on my birds' housing, my quail pen is hardware cloth over reclaimed wood with a piece of plywood on top.  My coop is made from a kitchen cabinet I found at the ReStore for $1! The birds don't care. 

2) Do not get backyard chickens if you don’t have a plan for what will happen when they get sick or injured.  What will you do if a chicken breaks its leg or its wing? Will you be able to cull (kill) it yourself?  Or will you pay money for a veterinarian to treat it?  What will you do if one chicken is constantly harassed by the others?  Will you build a separate pen for it, and get it new friends?  Will you cull it?  Will you sell it?  In two years, I have had one quail break its leg, one quail get a neurological disease, and one quail be scalped by the other birds so badly I could see its skull (related point: if you can’t handle the possibility of blood and gore, you might not want to get backyard birds).  I had little hope it would recover.  I culled each one.  It was not enjoyable.  It was not what I had pictured when I got the beautiful little birds.  But I did it, because sometimes you have to.  If you can’t handle sick or injured birds, don’t get a backyard flock. 

3)  Related to the above, do not get backyard chickens if you don’t have a plan for them after they are done laying.  A chicken will lay well for about two years, then taper off.  They will still lay occasionally and seasonally until they are five or so.  Are you planning to get birds and keep them until they die of old age?  Are you willing to continue paying for feed and bedding, and spend your time caring for birds who don’t lay eggs?  Or do you picture keeping a flock of constantly, highly productive birds? If so, you will need replacement birds every two years and to figure out what to do with the older ones.  My plan: soup.  But if you don’t think you can butcher your own birds, you will need to sell them or give them away (not knowing their eventual fate), or perhaps have someone butcher them for you.  If you can’t emotionally reconcile with eating your own birds and wouldn’t feel comfortable giving them away - and you don’t want to run a chicken retirement home - you might not want to get backyard birds.

Quail & Wild Rice Soup from the male coturnix quail we butchered

4) Don’t get backyard chickens if you don’t like being outside – in all kinds of weather.  This sounds stupid to include, but I think it’s a fair point that is easy to forget when chicks go on sale in April when the weather is fair and you’re looking forward to a dry, sunny summer.  You will have to feed, water, clean, and otherwise look after your birds in the beautiful springtime when it’s a pleasure to be in the great outdoors…and in the snow, sleet, hail, rain, wind, dark, thunder… Honestly, I don’t love getting up early to let the ducks out and I’m going to like it even less when it’s still dark.  I certainly didn’t love thawing the quails’ water twice every day in the snow in Kentucky last year.  But in that special, crazy way that animal people understand, I still like it; overall I get a lot of satisfaction out of caring for my animals.  There is a good feeling that comes from seeing your birds snug, cozy and healthy, even though their coop looks like an igloo at the North Pole.  If you would resent having to get out of your warm comfy bed when it’s still dark and its 12 degrees outside to go let your birds out, defrost their water, and feed them, you might not want to get backyard birds.  If you would sleep in and then stay inside all day with hot cocoa hoping they’ll be fine without you…please do not get backyard birds!


5) Don’t get backyard birds if you can’t handle poop.  Most of the magazines I read (for free from the library – I just discovered this!) occasionally feature backyard chicken-keeping.  They show beautiful, jaw-dropping, to-die-for coops, with fluffy free-ranging chickens romping through the country cottage gardens of their owners.  You know what is missing from these pictures?  CHICKEN POOP.  I promise you that before these photo shoots the coops were completely dug out, sprayed down, freshly painted, and the gardens and walk ways were scrubbed clean.  Because when you have birds, you have bird poop.  My ducks leave poop everywhere in my yard and I rake it, scoop it, and spray it into the ground every few days or it would be a disaster.  If you don’t want to be cleaning up poop, walking in poop, seeing poop, and smelling poop, you might not want to get backyard chickens. 

Yep - this means duck poop around the slide

6) Don’t get backyard chickens if you think they will lay an egg every day all year.  Partly  this just means, “please learn about chickens before you get them,” which I can hope everyone does, but I know everyone does not.  Chickens, ducks, quail etc do not simply lay an egg every day for their entire lives.  They might in the spring and summer, but when the day length gets shorter in the fall, they slow down.  In the winter they may stop completely.   If you want to continue to get eggs in the winter, you will need to light your coop on a timer to expose your birds to the right number of hours of light to stimulate lying.  More projects, more work, more management.  Or you can think of eggs as a seasonal food and let the birds take a break over winter and get back to laying naturally in the spring.  If you don’t want to manage your chickens for winter laying, and do not want to feed chickens who don’t lay eggs all winter, you may not want to get backyard chickens.

In September I'm getting 10 quail eggs a day - enough to make omelets every few days.  Soon, that won't be the case.

7)  Don’t get chickens if you don’t want day to day commitments.  Backyard birds mean you can’t spontaneously go on a weekend trip.  Someone will need to feed and water and collect eggs.  You can’t stay out late with your friends if your birds are free ranging; they will need to be locked up at night to protect them from predators.  While there is certainly some flexibility, you will have non-optional commitments to your animals.  You can’t just forget to check their water for two days.  You can’t just hope predators don’t find them if you decide not to go out in the snow and close them up in the evening. If you want a carefree, flexible, noncommittal lifestyle, backyard birds might not be for you.

My ducks come running (waddling?) when I call them for dinner every evening.  They thrive on consistency. 

8)  Don’t get backyard birds if you assume they will have no health or behavioral issues.  As I hope you’ve gathered from the points above, chickens cannot be placed in a coop and left to their own devices.  They need managing.  In addition to cleaning, feeding, watering and providing for their protection (whether free ranging and locking up at night, or in a permanent pen with a run), sometimes birds have additional issues that will challenge you and require your time and resources.  Birds may peck at or eat their own eggs.   They may get mites.  They may get diseases of their feet. They may get eye infections.  They may peck each other.  They may stop laying unexpectedly.  They may lay eggs with undeveloped shells.  They may become sick and get anorexic, anxious, aggressive.  You will need to observe your flock for any unusual signs, which means being educated enough to notice abnormal behavior and ready and willing to find ways to solve the problems.  If you want problem-free, maintenance-free birds… well, there aren’t any, so you might want to look for a different hobby.    

9) Don’t get backyard chickens because everyone else has backyard chickens. Or because you love all the pretty coops on Pinterest.  Or because Martha Stewart Living featured chickens this month.  I can't stress this enough.  Try, as much as possible, to sift through your motivates and determine if YOU really want to responsibility of caring for livestock, or if you are just in love with the idea of backyard chickens and fresh eggs.  Hundreds of chickens are dumped at shelters (or given away on Craigslist, or set loose and mauled by dogs, or neglected and killed by illness...) because well-meaning people were in love with the idea - but not the daily care - of chickens.  Get backyard chickens because YOU want and are committed to caring for chickens in all the above mentioned circumstances.  If you think backyard chickens might be a phase for you, or you’re caught up in the trend, don’t get them.

I love watching my ducks forage while I read for grad school.  Even if they eat my blueberry bush leaves.    

10) Don’t get backyard chickens if your family (especially your spouse) doesn't support you.  As the previous point states, personal commitment is a must.  You might think they will be your special project and pets, and so as long as no one in your family is actively opposing you, you can get them and do it all yourself.   In part that might be true.  The deal in our household is I can have animals as long as my husband has nothing to do with it.  But if you are sick, hurt, away for a few days, etc, someone is your family will need to take over for you.  Just last night I was feeling horrible after dinner and so my husband went and turned off the ducks light in their coop and closed them in.  If you are working on a big project, such as building a coop or fencing, or running electricity to the coop, you’ll probably also need the help or support of your family.  My husband helped me finish the quail pen when my carpentry skills were failing me (I have none, for the record).  And besides the tangible, physical assistance you may occasionally ask for, general support for your chicken-keeping is important.  Will they resent your early mornings or coming home from events so the birds can be cared for?  Will they get cranky at the smell in the backyard?  Will your sports-centric kids be frustrated that they can no longer kick soccer balls in the yard for fear of hitting the chickens or the coop?  Before you get chickens, make sure your whole family can live with them.  If you’re fortunate, they’ll love them.  If everyone else thinks it’s a bad idea, don’t get backyard chickens.    

Everyone having a drink. 

I love that the ducks are not afraid of my two-year-old and share the water with him...but it could become a problem if they get aggressive toward him.  I have to be vigilant. 

So, still thinking about backyard birds?  They can be fun, rewarding, entertaining, and their eggs are delicious (as are they…if you go down that road)!  If you read the list above and thought, “Yeah I can do that!”  then I think you’ll be off to a great start!  Caring for animals is work, but if you like work, don’t mind getting dirty, and have the time and energy to manage your flock and make hard decisions when needed, you and your birds will do fine.
 

Raising birds is right for me and my family!  How about you? 

Ducks in the Suburbs

I can never decide what to call our property...We live within the city limits, so we could be considered a "city mico-farm" or "urban homestead." But people growing produce and raising chickens on 4,000 square foot lots in the city would laugh at that - we live on over half an acre that hardly looks like the city.

 

Being such a small city, our property seems quite suburban even though it is in the city. We are on a street with picket fences and large yards, half a mile from major shopping. 

What makes our neighborhood fantastic and unique is that despite being two miles from downtown, we are zoned semi-rural and are therefore zoned for livestock and have very few restrictions on the management of our property. So we have quite a bit in common with the "country" as well!

All to say, I don't know what label to give our little homestead endeavor. For the purposes of this post I'm going with "suburban", since we have a large yard, but close neighbors, our two main considerations for keeping livestock.

We've had our four Welsh Harlequin ducks for about six weeks. I love them! They are beautiful, fun to watch, and becoming very friendly. I started sitting out in the yard and tossing them their food from my hand, so now they come running when I call them (I make a clucking sound like I make to get horses to move forward...old habit, new context!) and follow me around the yard.

So far, no eggs. We are disappointed, but not surprised. The move from their former home stressed them into molting. Over the first four weeks they were here they started losing their feathers and replacing them with new ones. This new growth takes a lot if energy, so molting birds tend to shut down egg production for 4-6 weeks, from what I've learned.

Now we are heading into fall, and days are getting shorter, so if we want eggs before next spring we need to artificially lengthen their expose to light. Right now, naturally our daylight is about 14 hours long. We will incrementally increase their light by 30 minutes every few days to get them to 17 hours per day. This increase should stimulate their hormones and send them into egg production. We hope!

We still need to install a permanent light fixture in their house ( which will require drilling a hole through our garage wall) so right now I am improvising by hanging a flashlight in their house at night for the needed extra light hours. Not ideal, but it should work for now. 

Keeping ducks in the suburbs poses a few more challenging issues than chickens.  The most obvious is their  need for large amounts of water.  Even if you do not provide swimming and bathing water, they still drink a LOT and need to be able to put their entire bills into the water, so a regular, very shallow chicken waterer will not work. We use a large tupperware storage container with two large holes cut into the lid.  The ducks can get the entire heads in the water, but cannot climb in or splash the water creating a mess in the pen.  We also do provide the ducks with a tub for swimming, which stays in the yard (not in their run or house) and is dumped, moved, and refilled everyday so no muddy areas are created.  One or two ducks can fit in at a time and they are lovely and fun to watch splash and dunk their heads under.  

Because ducks drink so much water, they poop a lot.  I can't compare the amount to chickens, since I have never kept chickens, but from what I read it is more and more watery.  Makes sense.  If you have a small or average sized suburban yard and let them free range, your yard will eventually be covered in duck poop unless you have a plan to manage it.  Out of deference for your neighbors - please do!  We have a large yard, so I did not think duck poop would be a big problem.  However, I did not consider that they might choose one spot of the yard as their territory and stay there.  But that's exactly what happened.  On the half acre they have access to, they spend 90% of their time on a patch of lawn that is about 15' by 10'.  I'll talk about how I maintain it in a minute.  Don't forget that like any poultry, their enclosure and house/coop will require regular cleaning or a deep litter method (that could be a separate blog post).  

Those are the only "downsides" I can think of and ducks have plenty of benefits, which is why we keep them! 

Unlike chickens, they do not scratch, so our garden beds, grass, and mulch are not dug up and strewn around.  They webbed feet are very gentle on the ground.

Laying breeds, like ours, lay lots and lots of eggs.  Good Welsh Harlequins can lay more eggs per year than even the BEST egg-laying chicken breeds!  It is only their need for water and space that keep these amazing birds out of commercial egg production - not their egg laying ability.  

Their manure is watery, which make it very easy to clean up with a hose.  My cleaning routine is below. 

The ducks we are keeping, Welsh Harlequins, and other breeds, are excellent foragers.  They can get a good amount of their dietary needs met through foraging for larvae, slugs, snail, grass, weeds, and other tidbits.  They will eat fish, frogs, and I hear even mice, if the opportunity presents itself! 

They love the water, of course, so we do not overly worry about keeping them and their area dry.  With chickens and with our quail, you must make sure that the birds' feet sty dry or health problems can ensue.  The ducks, on the other hand, run outside on wet days and literally dance in the rain and wash themselves under the water pouring out of our gutter spouts.   They love it.  Their hardiness in poor weather is one less thing to worry about.

My schedule for managing the ducks probably looks different than it would if we were on several acres.  But here I we do it :

I let them out of their house (where they are fully enclosed overnight) at 7am.  Give them their layer feed. They have access to a sandy run that is about 3' X 6'.  I usually open that gate also and let them out into the yard in the morning.

I spray out their waterer and refill it with fresh water.

I fill their pond.

I spray the grass where they spend most of the time and the watery poop just dissolves away into the soil.  If the manure has dried too much or the yard is covered in feathers (likewhen they were in molt) I rake the spot of yard they favor and scoop up the piles of feathers and manure and move it to the compost bin.

In addition to spot cleaning when needed, I rake this area of the yard every week on Friday morning so that when the neighbors are home and out in their yard over the weekend the area is nice and clean. On Friday I also pick out their house (which is a large walk-in shed attached to our garage) and the sandy run with a pitchfork, like you would clean a horse stall.  I scoop out the wet bedding, pick out the manure, and try to leave all the clean shavings I can in place to save money.  I add new shavings when needed.

In the afternoon, since we are home I have the boys help me pick some big dandelion leaves and some overgrown lettuce from the garden. We shred it up and sprinkle it over the top of their pond water.  The ducks LOVE to dabble for this, and we sit and enjoy watching them.

In the evening around our dinner time either my five-year-old or I go out to give the ducks their dinner.  They get another big scoop of feed.  This time we usually sit in the grass and toss it to them by hand.  This has worked wonders in helping them become friendly and confident around us.  Sometimes they are too pushy, and have tried to nab the food out of my son's hand, so he carries a stick with him now to push them back if they get in his face.

At 8pm when it is getting dark I go out and dump their pond water so it doesn't attract mosquitoes over night.  Plus it is usually at least a little dirty. I move their waterer into their house so they can have it overnight, but take the feed dish away and lock it in the feed room so it doesn't bring hungry rats or raccoons to the duck and quail pens.

I close the ducks up in their house, right now with a flashlight hanging in the rafters for their extra "daylight" hours.  This won't always be the case, since we are working on an automatic timing system that will turn on a light at dusk and off after they have met their 17 hours light requirement.

So for now I have to go back out at 10pm and take the flashlight down.

That's life with ducks in the suburbs!  It could be more streamlined, but I really enjoy spending time around them, so i don't mind one bit!  They are worth the work for their beauty and entertainment value, but we are certainly looking forward to the day we are getting fresh eggs and eventually hatching out beautiful little Welsh Harlequin babies!

Questions about ducks or suburban homesteading?  Leave a comment!

    

Summer Harvests

Daily Pickings

Snap peas, our first green beans, lettuce, Basil, Swiss chard (I already ate the duck egg!)

Summer lunch

After being outside in the sun all morning I was in the mood for a refreshing lunch.
Lettuce, apples, cucumbers, cherries, walnuts, almonds, and yogurt/apple cider vinegar/sugar dressing.

 

Full disclosure... my kids ate McDonald's for lunch on the way home from getting the ducks :P 

Our New Backyard Beauties: Welsh Harlequin Ducks

I am so excited to share pictures of our new livestock/pets/lawn ornaments!  (They are very shy right now, understandably, so I'll have nicer pictures in a week or so).

We took a little roadtrip 40 miles south to Conway, Washington to purchase a small breeding flock of Welsh Harlequin ducks. Yes - I said breeding flock!

Welsh Harlequins are an endangered breed of domesticated duck listed as "critical" by the Livestock Conservancy. I figured, if we want eggs and are already buying several females, why not go all the way and get a drake too?  This breed does fairly well with brooding (sitting on their eggs to hatch them- some domestic birds, like my quail,won't) and natural mothering, so if I create the right conditions I hope they will hatch and raise their own young.  I love the idea of contributing to a conservation effort and helping to preserve genetic diversity among domestic ducks.

And aren't they BEAUTIFUL!!

More about the ducks later... I'm sitting outside by their pen typing this on my phone. I just couldn't wait to share pictures!

Peace, love, and ducks,
Lauren