Origin Farm Dominica

Have you eve had the chance to gaze into a duckling's eyes? Here you go.

Some post hatch duck hair! 🤣 this is a khaki, a Swedish, and pekins in the background

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The pekin ducks at 5 weeks are out ranging on grass. Finally a little foraging going on!

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The beginning of Ducklandia.... !

The top pool will feed the lake below that's currently empty. We build ponds with the ability to drain, so we have the excavator leave a exit for the water that we will seal up with the drain pipe.

We do both natural and concrete ponds. The concrete ponds prevent leaks (from crabs, rocky pathways for water to flow) and create a warmer environment for tilapia. This is the stone work that is used as the foundation for the concrete, which anchors the concrete and allows us to use less concrete overall. Since the farm land is chock full of rocks, we're also getting rocks out of the way for planting at the same time.

When you have waterlogged swamp land, build ponds. Such beauty in just an hour's time!

The 7 week old ducklings' first day in the pond. The khaki Campbell ducklings get the adult ducks' pond while the adults look on in contempt from the Duck Castle. The adults have free access to the outside, so here they are staying inside to watch the newcomers. Eventually, I'll combine the groups.

What to do with a single duckling,
What to do with a single duckling,
What to do with a single duckling
Ear-ly in the morning

Hey-yup build some cages....
Ear-ly in the morning

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7 week old khaki Campbell's, who are in their awkward feathering stage, and 2 week old pekins, who growing super fast!!. It's a duckling bonanza!!

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Put the guppies in the food processor with the duckweed, and coconut (and sometimes watercress) and press blend! Locally produced duckling feed supplement

Going to lengths to make artificial guinea fowl eggs. The guineas have a bit of a psychological aspect to laying. When their community nest is growing from one day to the next, they will keep laying until the nest is ready to be sat on. But since guinea birds can't count, if the actual number of eggs doesn't increase, it's OK. As long as the nest isn't empty or have eaten eggs in it... in which case they will find a new hidden location to build their nest in.

So I take eggs, and I leave something in the nest for them to stay motivated. Leaving real guinea eggs attracts rats overnight who eat the eggs. Last year I was able to use an artificial chicken egg, but the guineas are on to the game, and they're kicking the chicken eggs out of the nest. So here we are, with blown out guinea eggs, filled with caulk.

Do you think it will fool them?

Did you know that it is impossible for a small poultry flock owner to breed and hatch out their own KFC broiler chicken?

That’s because the Broiler chicken - aka the massive, double-breasted Cornish Cross — is a hybrid of a hybrid – a bird with 60 years of breeding behind every bird in its lineage. The Cornish Cross itself is considered a terminal cross, in that it gets so large (and so rapidly!) that it isn’t well suited for breeding. There are 3 major broiler breeding companies in the world that guard the secrets of the lineage of the Broiler, and the largest company, Aviagen, owns 44% of the world broiler market across 85 countries.

With the genetics of the Broiler locked up by mega-corporations, small flock owners who don’t want to rely on shipping chicks in from a hatchery must turn to alternative meat birds — heritage (old) breeds that grow to a smaller size at a much slower but reasonable rate — or Broiler Ducks (Pekins), which can match the Broiler Chicken for size and speed of growth.