I had hoped the AI (avian influenza) enclosure order for poultry would be lifted by now, but our flock of nine hens and three ducks are still locked away and hating it. They're hating it so bad they've not been laying for pretty much the whole time--we've been getting somewhere between one and four eggs a week from ten adult birds. Nobody's happy--them or us.
I have let them take short supervised breaks into a small adjacent run (on the veg patch), but it's only for about an hour at a time, and not every day either. They have done some excellent work in such a small amount of time on it, tidying up weeds and spent Brussels sprouts plants, and eating bugs and scratching up the soil. It'll be ready for planting up very soon, then I'll move the run onto the lawn.
I'm not sure if we'll be raising any chicks this year; we didn't last year as our flock was too big (12). Unless we lose a few more chickens, I think our flock size is still big enough. We've been talking about trying to raise some ducklings instead, but it would mean killing and eating excess males--and ducks are a lot cuter than chickens. But then, drakes are as agressive as cockerels--just a lot less sharp--so maybe it wouldn't be so hard to kill them after all. And duck is so tasty...
But yeah. If our duck starts laying eggs ever again, and our little hen goes broody at some point, we might try her with them for some ducklings. If not, I don't think we'll be adding any more to the flock any time soon. And hopefully I'll be letting them out for some proper free range very soon.
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