Tips For Raising Ducks and Ducklings

Feeding Baby Ducks
Never feed ducks without water. Water helps get food down and clean beak vents. Always give baby ducks access to water for at least an hour before feeding.
We recommend chick starter with 20% protein for the first 10 weeks, switching to a 15% grower weeks 10-18, and a 16% layer after 18 weeks.
Ducklings have no teeth but appreciate finely chopped fruits, vegetables or greens. Small insects and worms make good treats, as well.

Shelter
Not just an escape from predators and the elements, ducks need shelter to provide quiet and seclusion.
The shelter should be well ventilated and large enough that your ducks can fully expand their wings and groom.

Water
Ducklings need a ready source of clean water. Chick fountains are recommended.
Ducklings will play in water, making a mess. Be sure to clean it often.
Water should be no more than ¼" deep. Make sure ducks can easily escape the water. Baby ducks love to play in water but can easily drown if they tire.
Ducklings don't produce waterproofing oil until 4 weeks of age. In the wild, mothers apply it. Swimming your ducks too early can result in death from chill or even drowning from fatigue.

Flight
Most commercially grown ducks are too large to maintain flight and will stay around a good source of food, water and shelter.
Straight run ducks at TSC can include a mix of breeds. Be advised migrating species such as Mallard may be included. Once adult, these may or may not take up permanent residence.

Eggs
A duck egg can be used for anything a chicken egg would, but take size differences into account for recipes.
Besides being larger, duck eggs have thicker whites and proportionately larger yolks than chicken eggs. Overcooking will render them rubbery.
Many prefer duck eggs for baking, believing the high protein content helps cakes to rise and stay risen while the high fat content adds richness and flavor.

How to Grow Flax

Days to germination: 14 to 21 days
Days to harvest: 100 days
Light requirements: Full sun
Water requirements: Frequent but light watering
Soil: Well-drained with organic matter
Container: Suitable but not ideal

Introduction

Though flax may be better known as a crop grown for its fiber, the seeds are nutritious and eaten as an additive to many foods.

Linseed oil comes from flax seeds, and the seeds themselves are high in fiber and omega-3 fatty acids. Though seldom eaten on their own, they are an excellent supplement to many dishes. It has a slightly nutty flavor.

Flax may be grown for its seeds, but it is not your typical grain plant. It is more like an ornamental with a lovely blue flower. Some varieties of flax are annuals, and some are perennials. The type of flax usually grown for seed harvesting has the botanical name of Linum usitatissiumum and is not usually considered a floral garden plant. It may not be sold at your local garden center, but seeds can be purchased online or even at some agricularal co-ops. This kind of flax is an annual, so you don’t need to overwinter your plants.

Starting from Seed

Flax can be started indoors, and then transplanted out later or just sown directly into the garden. If you have a short growing season, you may want to start your seeds inside so your plants can mature and go to seed before the frost.

In small peat pots, plant seeds 5 weeks before your expected last frost date. Keep them in a sunny place and water often enough that the soil does not dry out. They take a while to germinate, so be patient.

Transplanting

Dig your soil well, and add in a good helping of aged manure or compost before you plant. Flax thrives on organic-rich soils. Your plants won’t get overly tall, seldom higher than 3 feet so shading shouldn’t be a huge problem.

Seeds can be sown out early in the spring, and covered in just a thin layer of soil. Keep your seeds about 12 inches apart, or at least thin down to that spacing once your plants start to come up. You can do this a week or two before your last spring frost.

Because it can take up to 3 weeks before you see any sprouts, you will have to keep the area well-weeded or you may find your flax seedlings are overwhelmed before they can get established. Mark where the seeds are so you don’t accidentally weed out something you shouldn’t.

If you are putting out started seedlings from indoors, its best to wait until the frost has passed.

Growing Instructions

Flax will needs a lot of nutrients, so you should give your plants a feeding with a standard formula fertilizer once a month through the growing season.

You will also have to water fairly frequently, though not overly heavily. Flax does best in moist but not soggy soils. Good drainage is important.

Containers

Though the flax plant is small enough to be grown in containers, the number of plants you will need may make it a difficult task. As with any seed crop, one plant usually produces a very small yield. In order to get a reasonable harvest, you need to plant a larger number of plants. Trying to do this with containers is usually inadequate.

Pests and Disease

Flax is quite prone to various fungus infections, so be prepared with the fungicide if you are going to grow flax. Many kinds of rust and wilt can infect a flax plant, so you need to be on the lookout for any strangely colored patches on the leaves, or wilting stems. Treatment with a regular fungicide is a good idea.

If that wasn’t enough to deal with, there are a few insects that are a problem with flax as well. The flax bollworm is one such pest. The adult moths lay eggs in the flowers, which hatch into hungry green striped caterpillars that eat the seeds out of the pods. Treating the plants with pesticides when the flowers are blooming can help to control the adults, and you should pick off any caterpillars you see later in the season.

Typical garden cutworms are also an issue with new flax plants. If cutworms are present in your area, use small cardboard collars to protect your seedlings or they may get sliced right through overnight. Once they are more mature, cutworms should not be an issue.

Harvest and Storage

Your seeds are ready to harvest when the large seed pods are yellow and starting to split open.

Cut the pods from the plants, and spread them out somewhere where they can dry further (not out in direct sunlight). Once the seeds are dead ripe and cannot be dented with a fingernail, you just have to separate them from their seed pods. For a small harvest, you can manually pop open each pod and take out the 4 to 6 small seeds inside.

If you have more flax to deal with, you can crush all the seed pods at once (also called threshing), by whatever means you wish. You can put them in a bag or pillowcase, and beat them against a railing or a chair, or even crush them underfoot.

Then you can use a fan or the wind to help sort the seeds from the debris. This step is called winnowing. Use a couple of containers, or even do it over a large sheet. Just pour handfuls of the debris from several feet up, and let the wind blow out the lighter pieces of leaves and seed pod. The heavier seeds will fall straight down.

As long as the seeds are completely dry, you can store them in any tight container for 8 to 10 months at room temperature. It can also be stored in the refrigerator, but it doesn’t usually prolong its life any longer. That might be a more suitable option though if your house is warm.

For an expected harvest yield, a quarter acre of flax will provide you with at least a bushel of seed.

How to Grow Beets

Beets are a cool season vegetable crop. This root veggie grows quickly and has many different varieties which showcase deep red, yellow or white bulbs of different shapes. They can survive frost and almost freezing temperatures, which makes them a good choice for northern gardeners and an excellent long-season crop.

Planting

A soil pH above 5.5–6 is best, otherwise growth will be stunted. Beets are a good indicator of soil pH.

Till in aged manure before planting. Beets require especially good nutrition and a high phosphorus level to germinate. Go easy on nitrogen however, an excess will cause sprawling greens and tiny bulbs beneath the soil.

Wait until soil reaches 50 degrees before planting.

Plant seeds ½ inch deep and 1-2 inches apart.

Make sure soil remains moist for germination.

In zones with low moisture and rainfall, soak the seeds for 24 hours before planting.

Early crop can be planted in March/April, and late crop anytime from June to September. Successive plantings are also possible as long as the weather doesn't exceed 75 degrees F. Space plantings about 20 days apart.

Winter crops are a definite possibility in Zone 9 and above.

Care

Thinning is necessary, as you may get more than one seedling out of each seed. Thin when they read about 2 inches high by pinching them off. Pulling them out of the ground may disturb the close surrounding roots of nearby seedlings.

Established plants should be thinned to 3–4 inches between plants.

Mulch and water well. Beets need to maintain plenty of moisture.

Any necessary cultivation should be gentle, beets have shallow roots that are easily disturbed.

Harvest/Storage

Days to maturity tend to be between 50 and 70 for most varieties, although they can be harvested at any time you see fit. If you like larger bulbs, wait longer, but understand they will be tougher and woody.

Don't let greens grow above 6 inches before harvesting.

Don’t forget about the tops! Beet greens have a delicious and distinctive flavor, and hold more nutrition than the roots.

Fresh beets can be stored in the refrigerator for 5–7 days. Clipping the tops off beets will keep them fresher for longer. Leave about one inch of stem on each beet, and store the greens separately.

For root cellar type storage, make sure you brush off any soil clinging to these crops, then store them in a cool, dry place. An unheated closet might do, or put them in a cooler in your basement.

Beets can be frozen, canned and pickled.

What Is the Difference between Animal Rights and Welfare ?

Although animal rights and animal welfare frequently fall on the same side of an issue, there is a fundamental difference between the two ideologies: the right of humans to use animals.

The Right to Use Animals

One of the basic tenets of animal rights is that humans do not have a right to use non-human animals for our own purposes, which include food, clothing, entertainment and vivisection. This is based on a rejection of speciesism and the knowledge that animals are sentient beings.

There are many who believe that humans do have a right to use animals for some purposes, but believe that the animals should be treated better. This position is the animal welfare position.

Example – Farmed Animals

While the animal rights position seeks the elimination of the use of animals, the animal welfare position seeks more humane conditions for the animals. The difference between these two positions can be seen as applied to an issue like farmed animals.

While the animal rights position would hold that humans do not have the right to slaughter and eat animals, the animal welfare position would be that the animals should be treated humanely before and during slaughter. The animal welfare position would not object to the consumption of animals, but would seek the elimination of cruel factory farming practices such as confining calves in veal crates, confining pregnant sows in gestational stalls, and debeaking chickens.

Animal rights advocates also oppose these cruel practices, but seek to eliminate the consumption of animals and animal products.

Unacceptable Uses

To most supporters of the animal welfare position, some uses of animals are unacceptable because the human benefit is minimal compared to the amount of animal suffering involved. These usually include uses like fur, cosmetics testing, canned hunting, and dog fighting. On these issues, both the animal rights position and animal welfare position would call for the elimination of these uses of animals.

The Animal Issues Spectrum

Like many other issues, there is a wide variety of positions on animal issues. One can imagine a spectrum with animal rights at one end, animal welfare in the middle, and the belief that animals do not deserve any moral consideration on the other end. Many people may find that their views do not fit completely within one box or the other, or may find that their positions change depending on the issue.

Other terminology

A variety of terms are used to describe positions on animal issues. These include animal protection, animal advocacy, and animal liberation. “Animal protection” and “animal advocacy” are usually understood to include both animal rights and animal welfare. Both terms embody a belief that animals should be protected and deserve some moral consideration. “Animal liberation” is usually used to describe an animal rights position, which would oppose any uses of animals for human purposes.

10 Fascinating Facts About Honey Bees

No other insect has served the needs of man like the honey bee. For centuries, beekeepers have raised honey bees, harvesting the sweet honey they produce and relying on them to pollinate crops. Honey bees pollinate an estimated one-third of all the food crops we consume. Here are 10 facts about honey bees you might not know.

1. Honey bees can fly at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour.
That might seem fast, but in the bug world, it's actually rather slow. Honey bees are built for short trips from flower to flower, not for long distance travel. Their tiny wings must flap about 12,000 times per minute just to keep their pollen-laden bodies aloft for the flight home.

2. A honey bee colony can contain up to 60,000 bees at its peak.
It takes a lot of bees to get all the work done. Nurse bees care for the young, while the queen's attendant workers bathe and feed her. Guard bees stand watch at the door. Construction workers build the beeswax foundation in which the queen lays eggs and the workers store honey. Undertakers carry the dead from the hive. Foragers must bring back enough pollen and nectar to feed the entire community.

3. A single honey bee worker produces about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
For honey bees, there's power in numbers. From spring to fall, the worker bees must produce about 60 lbs. of honey to sustain the entire colony during the winter. It takes tens of thousands of workers to get the job done.

4. A queen honey bee stores a lifetime supply of sperm.
The queen bee can live 3-4 years, but her biological clock ticks a lot faster than you might think. Just a week after emerging from her queen cell, the new queen flies from the hive to mate. If she doesn't do so within 20 days, it's too late; she loses her ability to mate. If successful, however, she never needs to mate again. She holds the sperm in her spermatheca and uses it to fertilize eggs throughout her life.

5. The queen honey bee lays up to 1,500 eggs per day, and may lay up to 1 million in her lifetime.
Just 48 hours after mating, the queen begins her lifelong task of laying eggs. So prolific an egg layer is she, she can produce her own body weight in eggs in a single day. In fact, she has no time for any other chores, so attendant workers take care of all her grooming and feeding.

6. The honey bee uses the most complex symbolic language of any animal on earth, outside of the primate family.
Honey bees pack a million neurons into a brain that measures a mere cubic millimeter, and they use every one of them. Worker bees must perform different roles throughout their lives. Foragers must find flowers, determine their value as a food source, navigate back home, and share detailed information about their finds with other foragers. Karl von Frisch received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1973 for cracking the language code of honey bees – the waggle dance.

7. Drones, the only male honey bees, die immediately after mating.
Male honey bees serve only one purpose: they provide sperm to the queen. About a week after emerging from their cells, the drones are ready to mate. Once they've fulfilled that purpose, they die.

8. Honey bees maintain a constant temperature of about 93º F within the hive year-round.
As temperatures fall, the bees form a tight group within their hive to stay warm. Honey bee workers cluster around the queen, insulating her from the outside cold. In summer, the workers fan the air within the hive with their wings, keeping the queen and brood from overheating. You can hear the hum of all those wings beating inside the hive from several feet away.

9. Honey bees produce beeswax from special glands on their abdomens.
The youngest worker bees make the beeswax, from which workers construct the honeycomb. Eight paired glands on the underside of the abdomen produce wax droplets, which harden into flakes when exposed to air. The workers must work the wax flakes in their mouths to soften them into a workable construction material.

10. An industrious worker bee may visit 2,000 flowers per day.
She can't carry pollen from that many flowers at once, so she'll visit 50-100 flowers before heading home. All day long, she repeats these round trip flights to forage, which puts a lot of wear and tear on her body. A hardworking forager may live just 3 weeks.

Supplies for Baby Chicks

What do you need to be sure you're ready for them when they get home? This list will take you through all the supplies you'll need for your new baby chicks.

Brooder Guard or Area
A brooder area is, simply put, a draft-free place where you will keep your chicks. Feed and farm supply stores sell large, oval galvanized tubs for this purpose, and you can buy specialized brooders complete with heat, but a brooder can also be made of cardboard, a plastic tub, a kiddie pool, or anything else you can dream up.

One caution: chicks have a habit of finding any little crevice or opening in the brooder and getting out. You'd think they could find their way back in, but when they're very young, they can't. You'll hear the loud cheeps of a lost chick anytime one gets out, but if they can't get back in, they can eventually die of stress, starvation, or thirst.
Brooder size: 2 square feet of space per chick.

Brooder Heat Lamp
Unless you have a complete brooder, ou'll need a 250-watt heat lamp to keep the chicks warm. The area under the lamps should be 95 degrees F the first week, decreasing by 5 degrees per week until the chicks are fully feathered out (about 6 weeks of age) and/or you've reached the ambient temperature outdoors at night.

Have a backup, too. Chicks will die if they get too cold, so a spare light bulb will help ensure they never freeze to death. The light bulb needs to be housed in a proper lamp housing with a metal guard to prevent it from catching the bedding on fire if it should fall. Making sure it's height-adjustable is helpful, too.

One 250-watt heat lamp will warm 75 chicks at 50 degrees F ambient temperature.

Chick Waterer
I like to use these Mason jar bases for chicks for the first week or two. You'll find as they grow, you'll refill it more and more often. I use two half-gallon Mason jars with bases per 25 chicks and refill every 2 or 3 days. You need something that has a very small trough for them to drink out of, or else they'll get right in it, get wet, chilled and possibly die.

Once they're a bit bigger, they can handle a gallon waterer or more. After about two weeks, I just move to a 5-gallon metal waterer like I use for my grown layers.

Set the waterers up out of the shavings on a piece of wood or other makeshift stand, or you'll be picking shavings out of the water several times a day.

Chick Feeders
It's worth investing in special chick-sized feeders. I like the feeders with holes that they peck through for the first week or two, like the ones shown in the photo. You'll save enough money in wasted feed with the chick feeders that it will pay for their cost. They're designed so that the chicks can't get into and poop in the feed or tip it over. Allow free access to feed at all times.

The very first day, I spread some feed on a piece of cardboard and tap it. They immediately find the feed and the sound of beaks tapping on cardboard leads other chicks to the sound.

After about a week or two, I move to a tube-style feeder. Leave the chick feeders and new feeder out together for a day or so, to make sure they find the new food.

Bedding
Baby chicks need bedding just like older hens. Pine shavings are best as straw or hay are the wrong scale for them. They will get lost! Others start chicks on newspaper covered with hardware cloth. Never start chicks on newspaper alone, because it's too slippery. They can develop a condition called spraddle legs from being started on newspaper.

Feed
Use a high-quality feed, usually called "chick starter." Different brands of feed will have you transition to grower at different ages - some at 6 weeks of age and some as late as 6 months of age. Follow the recommendations of your feed manufacturer.

Medicated or not? It's up to you. If you have your chicks vaccinated for coccidiosis at the hatchery, do not feed medicated feed. If they're unvaccinated, you might want to provide them with medicated feed for extra protection.

Supplements
Here are some of the "extras" I've had success with:

Gro Gel Plus: a gel that you feed to new hatchlings. Helps them find the feed and gets them off to a good start. Not necessary, but nice.
Quik Chik (or another brand): a vitamin and electrolyte powder you use in their water.
Diatomaceous earth: use food-grade only. Can be sprinkled in their feed to deter diseases, and when they're older you can sprinkle it in the coop (wear a respirator!) to kill mites.
Grit: after the first week, if the birds have any access to bugs or worms, make sure they also have a source of grit, which helps them digest "real" food. Just some sand or dirt is fine, or you can buy grit at a feed or farm store.