The ducks are almost done with their molt. And by that I mean while they have finished growing out their wing feathers, they just haven’t resumed laying yet. We don’t do freedloaders around here; it’s definitely time for them to get on their game.

Meanwhile, our chickens and turkeys had their wings clipped. We separated the poultry from the goats and put them in their own pen. For some reason, while the ducks were more than willing to comply, the chickens and turkeys insist upon flying over the 4′ fence to roost in the goat pen at night. This is not the expectation, as birds poop when they roost and soil the goats’ food and water. Not cool. So, they earned themselves a spa day and got their wings clipped. Basically, we removed the same feathers that the ducks lost while in molt with scissors. BAM! No more unapproved visits.

There are those of you who might be quick to point out that our fence is only 4′ – we’re bound to have problems. Well, yes, yes we are. Trust me, it’s not that we hadn’t thought it out. We’re zoned residential agricultural, and the ‘fencing’ part of our town regulations limit fence height to 4′ only. Meanwhile, constructing a building for farm use falls under the ‘agriculture’ aspect of our zoning. In other words, as long as we claim that the building is for farming, we don’t even need a permit for it.

So, if you’re following me, we can put up a 6 stall horse barn for 2,200 pound Belgian horses without ever notifying the town and still be compliant, but we can’t have a fence over 4′ high. Go figure.

Anyway, that’s where the birds are at. We’ll have to do several posts all right in a row to get the blog up to speed… we’ve been going longer periods of time between posts than we had been because there’s been so much going on! A good thing, I suppose, but I do enjoy coming on here posting.

We’ll be back very soon!