Duck Pooh, smingy gold!!

[Marv]

Mid-spring this year, we had a pair of wild mallards set up a nest close to the nature pond we put in a few years ago. It was quite nice having them wandering around the garden.

While I was away, something came along and destroyed the eggs they laid. Looking at the CCTV, it looked like it might have been a pheasant that destroyed the eggs...but the wildlife pond is a little far away for my cameras to make out properly what happened. I googled it and there was a post on a forum where someone said that pheasants will destroy unguarded duck eggs.

The ducks went elsewhere after that, a few more months passed, and I've seen a female mallard with chicks in the river at the bottom of the garden, so hopefully the couple managed to re-lay eggs elsewhere and successfully hatch them.

As for chickens, we bought three Cotswold Legbar hens when my niece and nephew were young. They lived a nice life in the forest, laying lots of eggs (sometimes in the trees!), until a fox moved in and killed all three of them.

We bought two Pekin Bantams hens a little while after. One got to about 12 years old and died naturally (I think it was probably water belly), the other is still going on strong at 14 years old. It stopped laying eggs years ago (they never produced loads of eggs anyway), but apparently 14 years for a chicken is something like the equivalent of 130+ years human years

That is some serious age for the Pekins! They do seem like nice birds as pets.

This seems to be the question when choosing hens is personality vs the size and quantity of eggs, e.g. a ex commercial laying hen which pushes out an egg a day but is a bit more flighty and less friendly, or going for something smaller, cuter, friendlier and more pet like but with smaller and fewer eggs.

Kinda torn between things like Sussex’s, Legbars etc which are great layers and Silkies, Pekins which are just cute

TBH, in terms of friendliness, I didn't find the Cotswold Legbars to be that different to the Pekin Bantams.

I remember with the Legbar's, when they used to see me parking up the car, they'd often come over to say hi

The Pekins were sisters and had distinct personalities. They swapped a few times which one was dominant. The sister that passed away loved to eat, and if you chucked down a few treats, she'd run over and eat them all, normally before her sister got to the food She was also more friendly than her remaining sister. Our remaining Pekin really doesn't like being picked up and has pecked me a few times... but her personality has changed a little since her sister passed away too.

They were really bought for my niece and nephew when they were young, so I don't think we'll be getting anymore once the remaining one finally passes away. They are nice pets though, quite endearing.