There are benefits (and drawbacks) of frequently moving your birds which we would like to briefly detail below.
Winter is the period where our birds typically turn into freeloaders while the daylight hours are short. This year the ducks have picked up the slack providing us a couple eggs a day while the hens take a break. We have 16 ducks and 12ish chickens running in a mixed flock that we contain with poultry netting. We would prefer to let them run free, but the chickens have a bad habit of getting eaten by foxes and the ducks like to head over to the neighbor’s and mess up their flower beds. That being said, hawks still land in our fenced area and eat our birds and the new Muscovy ducks fly out and do as they please, so our efforts are so-so at best. Additionally, their water requires electricity to keep it from freezing so we need to be careful where we keep the birds in the winter so that they are within reach of an extension cord.
The birds have a relatively large area but with almost 30 of them running around they need to be moved pretty frequently or they start to have a negative impact on the land. Manure can accumulate faster than the ground can absorb it, ducks make mud-holes that take time to fill and reseed, and the mobile coop shades areas which inhibits vegetative growth. The movement process was very easy pre-duck since we could just move the coop at night while the chickens were sleeping, and they would simply wake up in their new area like nothing happened. Since the ducks have joined us however, movement has become significantly more complicated. The ducks never sleep (at least not at the same time) and have no interest in doing what they are told. They need to be herded through laneways constructed of fencing which is time consuming and doesn’t always work. Ducks can be less than brilliant and sometimes will get tangled in the fencing for no reason other than to cause us angst. The last time this happened, Tanya was stabbed in the hand with one of their dagger-like claws so now our ducks have tasted blood, and I fear they enjoyed it.
The new plan is to still move the chickens while they are in the coop (either dusk or dawn), and after the coop is in its new location, to herd the ducks while using food as a motivator. This plan worked relatively well this morning. If you are interested, please check out the process at https://youtu.be/JCKd2Yhcyuw. You will see that, with some minor hiccups like an attempted duck escape, the process works pretty well. Also there is a point where the hitch gets stuck to the Kubota and if you pay attention you will notice that I trap myself and the Kubota in with the birds! We also intend to significantly improve video production and editing during 2023. Should be a fun project!
Thank you again and until next time,
CJ and Tanya