2016 – Page 3 – Peacock Orchard

10 Duck Pond Ideas for your Homestead

If you have ducks, and you should, then supplying them with enough water is probably a problem you are facing. I am going to share a 10 simple ideas with you for solving your water problems.

1. A plastic kiddie pool. This is an easy, cheap way to supply your ducks with bountiful water. It needs emptied weekly at the very least, and that means wasting a lot of water. So unless you are able to funnel the water to say, an orchard, this idea may not be for you. Works great for pigs too.2. Half a dog kennel. This one seems a bit weird, right. Perhaps, but it works fantastically well. Easy entrance and exit for young ducks, doesn’t use too much water and is easy to clean. I used them until they cracked one winter.

3. Stock tank. Similar to the kiddy pool but sturdier the stock tank is a good solution if you are looking for larger solutions. They make metal and rubbermaid stock tanks. I have a sheep tank that worked just fine for a little while. Cleaning it out is a real problem. You also have to make sure there are blocks for the ducks to get in and out of the tank or they will drown.

4. Automatic Waterer. This is the ideal solution for limited space and water. This is also a great winter solution as some heat tape keeps the entire thing from freezing and you from hauling around a hose. This is a great solution for all animals on the farm but for me, it was all about the ducks and the huge mess they make.

5. Heated water bowl. Another solution for winter water this one is quite laborious for you as it requires hauling water out to it at least twice a day. I’ve done this more than one winter and survived to tell the tale. It’s still not ideal though.

6. Dig a duck pond and seal it with cement or a pond liner. This is an expensive option, but a superior one as far as longevity and enjoyment go. I was able to dig a 10x14x3 foot duck pond with the bucket of our Kubota tractor. The deeper portion I cemented and the smaller bio-filter portion of the pond was lined with pond liner. The cons to this pond are the cement cracking (which mind did the first winter) and the liner cracking (which mind also did that first winter). Cementing and sealing this pond were also really laborious.

7. Dig a duck pond and seal it with bentonite. Bentonite is a clay polymer that when mixed with regular dirt and compressed seals water into ponds and waterways. This is a great solution all around. It’s less expensive than cement and pond liners and their is no risk of cracking.

8. Dig a duck pond and gley it with pigs. This is my favorite option. It’s inexpensive and you get bacon when it is all done. What isn’t to love?

9. Filtering duck pond water. Plants are the best way to filter duck pond water. The problem is protecting those plants from the ducks. They are smarter than they look, or so I’ve found. After some trial and error I’ve found caging each plant individually to be the best way. I am perfectly happy with whatever grows out of the cages being consumed so long as the main plant is protected. So far, so good. Also make sure your pond is properly aerated either with a pump or an under water aerator.

10. Controlling pests in a duck pond. Bugs do love a good body of water to procreate in. Midge flies really really loved ours. The ducks weren’t eating them so the best and safest solution was goldfish. 100 goldfish released into the pond solved the problem in a single day and then fed the ducks.

Life and Loss on the Farm

We have had an eventful few weeks. So many new babies around and so many more in the works that it is rather exciting. The peachicks have finally hatched and momma pea is doing a wonderful job with them.

In fact, she has kept them quite hidden most of the time. So much so that I had a hard time figuring out how many she’d had. Seven, I now know. She has finally gone into the barn where I have locked her up in solitary confinement. Don’t feel bad for her though, her confinement is approximately 300 sq ft. It did take some talented staple gunning though. I had to chicken wire the area between the run in portion of the barn and the tack shed, where the chickens sleep every night. I didn’t want the chickens getting into the pea area and drinking the water, which I have to medicate for coccidosis. I hope that by keeping her confined in the barn with the medicated water I can save the peachicks. In years past the momma peas have always lost every single baby to coccidosis. When I raise them I manage to medicate them enough to get them through but then they die as soon as I release them as, for some reason, they are mighty attracted to the dogs, who think they are delicious.

She has two blackshoulder babies and 5 india blue. I’ve never had a blackshoulder survive. I am very hopeful this year around.

Daddy has been quite occupied running about screaming his awful scream. He is the worst sounding peacock I’ve ever heard. It sounds like he has something stuck in his throat.

In other baby news, we had 2 chicks hatch. The mama has been taking very good care of them.

The ducks have eggs all over the place. Four of the hens have taken to sitting, two on a single nest.

They do an excellent job of caring for their eggs, even when they get up to eat.

I had to post this photo of Son helping me with feeding time. Now that he has discovered he can carry feed in his dump truck he is all in for feeding time chores.

Now the loss part of this post. Our twelve year old weimeraner has passed on. He was in awful shape for some time and suffered an injury that he was unable to recover from. Being blind he injured himself quite often but this last one was rather horrific. He is buried with his brother, Louie, and our dearest Celsus. This has been a great comfort to the children who are happy to know he is not alone. I like to remember him as a younger dog. A dog that caused havoc wherever he went and proudly caught whatever we sent him after.

How the trees are dealing with unseasonable weather

It’s hot. It’s even been in the 90’s a few times. This is not Wyoming weather. This is…..this is weather unfit for human kind. It’s also dry. Spring is when we get our rain. August, September and October are our dry months. We can go without a lick of rain that entire time. Now though, now is not good. This heat, this drought, this is not good on my young trees.

I’m discouraged. I can’t water. I don’t have the water rights to water. I’m taking water out to the most desperate trees but otherwise, I’m just praying. Praying for rain that is missing us every single time.

The kraters and swales do their job admirably. I think if the trees were established better the whole system would be stable against drought conditions. The trees aren’t established though. The most established tree is on it’s 3rd year. All the others are going on their second summer or even their first in a few cases. Their roots aren’t established enough to survive this.

They are drooping. They are yellowing. Their leaves are falling off. I’m near despair. Please, rain, please.

I think I need to mulch. I haven’t for various reasons. Ok, I actually have. The very first year I mulched the trees and it was utterly pointless. It all blew away. I haven’t bothered since. I think I need to try again though. Straw being my best bet. Perhaps fresher straw and not the half decomposed straw I used the first time.

Still, perhaps this is a lost cause. That’s the thought at the very back of my mind. That I’ve done something foolish thinking it was something brave. That I’ve spent years and thousands of dollars proving all of the nay sayers right. If a single dry spring can kill all of my work than this system doesn’t work.

It’s not all dead though. It’s simply dying. Come rain. Come and restore my plants and my spirit. We are all waiting for you.

Beauty Abounds

Our property is in bloom. So many blooms I can’t even fit them all in one post. We have the usual alfalfa and sweet clover. The blooming weeds, erm, wildflowers. The beauty is everywhere but for me, it’s acutely in the plants I’ve planted myself. The acres of sainfoin blooming in all their pink glory. The cider orchard full of vetch, poppies, clover and more.

Enough talk, enjoy the beauty with me.

The sainfoin is such an object of fascination for us.

Let’s not forget the beauty in our animals either. Unfortunately only one of them would stand still long enough to get a good picture.

My glorious Prince the blackshoulder peacock.

Natural Swim Pond- digging has begun

We are water people. I love everything about it, so naturally we’d want something to swim in on our property. Something lovely and looks like it belongs in the landscape. It wasn’t feasible before. Too expensive. However, the unintentional pond has shown us we can line a pond rather cheaply with materials from our own property. Wyoming is a leading producer of Bentonite, a clay that is used a lot in construction and pond building. I cannot say 100% that bentonite is the reason we made the unintentional pond but whatever that black clay is, it holds water. So we’ll be mining it out and lining our natural swim pond with it.

Stage 1 of this project is obviously digging the hole. Our trusty excavator is making light work of that. The swimming area of the pond is planned to be a rectangle 30 feet long and at least 7 feet across. The deep end will also be 7 feet. Our excavator can only dig 7 feet if you hadn’t guessed.

I have the deep end dug, for the most part. I need to move the excavator to the other side to get some stuff I couldn’t reach, but otherwise it’s good to go.

My progress was halted by the gigantic pile of dirt that had accumulated near me. The plan was to double team the digging, one of us in the excavator and one in the tractor moving the dirt. Kids prohibit that plan mostly. Someone has to watch the little devils. They also inhibit the moving of dirt as it is a premier play spot.

We managed it, somehow. The entire pile hasn’t been moved, weather intervened, but I can move the excavator around now to finish the deep end.

So once the rectangle is completed I will go back and slope the walls for the planting area. Make it a more organic shape. Then comes the lining with bentonite. That will be the toughest job yet. Once that’s done though, nothing but plants and parties.

Mulching the garden, my positive and really negative experiences

My beautiful niece and nephew came over to assist with some farm chores for cash. I picked a terrible one for them. I tend to pick pay tasks by how little I actually want to do them. I have a 5 year old hay bale in the lean-to I’ve been picking away at over the years. I finally want it out of there and moved to the garden areas for mulching.

I love mulch for it’s ability to suppress weeds (as I’m a lazy gardener) and it’s ability to hold in moisture. I’m terrible at watering too. My tomatoes and peppers are valuable to me. There is nothing like home canned spaghetti sauce and salsa. I need these things to really take off. So mulching them is worth paying for, and not hauling hay, more so.

I am nervous about this though. I mulched our largest garden last fall in the hopes of suppressing a lot of weeds. What we got instead was an infestation of ground squirrels. When dead babies started showing up we actually worried about the plague. That garden has been completely abandoned at this point. It did have a high point though. One snowy day we looked out the window to find this:

Isn’t it the most glorious stoat you’ve ever seen! That little stoat spent a week murdering every ground squirrel it could find. We haven’t seen one in that garden since. Hasn’t stopped me from abandoning the garden though. The ground squirrels will repopulate the tunnels, it’s just a matter of time. Still, we have some anti-squirrel around and that feels pretty darn amazing.

So you can see why I would be rather nervous about mulching the new gardens. It is done though, or at least part of it is. The tomato and pepper part at least.

Nice in progress picture. It’s a tire surround and makes the entire thing a raised bed. Tomatoes in the middle and peppers in the tires. Nice soaker hose running through the entire thing.

I made sure to leave plenty of room around my tiny plants. They would be larger but I prune off most of the leaves and plant them as far up the stem as possible. I had amazing results with it last year and I’m not messing with success!

Stay tuned for a story about the sleep over hysteria that followed this mulching chore!