Ducks, eggs and magpies.

This is the only duckling we kept from this year’s hatch.  A lady bought the rest of them for her Granddad to keep him company on his allotment.  We can’t leave any eggs in the duck house  with the mother now as the magpies are in there daily and we keep finding eaten ducks egg shells scattered around the farm.  In fact, they were sat outside our bedroom window this morning and I’m pretty sure I could hear them laughing at us!

So we’re taking the eggs in and I’m baking with them or my daughter is having them with soldiers as she prefers the larger yolk of the duck egg.  They make the best cakes.  We may keep one more batch to put in the incubator when the lot that are in there hatch on the 26^th July (they are the Jersey Giant ones we bought from the auction plus a few of our hens to make maximum use of them).

The duckling is as big as the adult ducks now and is no longer a duckling.  He will be used a table bird.  My daughter (holding him) knows he will end up as a meal or more for our family and both children are fine with this.  They know the huge importance of ensuring all of our animals have a happy, healthy life and enjoy every minute they have with us.  It means when we come to eat their meat, instead of buying it at Tesco, we can be sure that we know where our meat comes from and that it’s as organic as possible, which is an important part for us, of running a small holding.

I’m making some red onion and redcurrant relish which I think would taste lovely with duck meat.  We’re going to try the relish at the weekend with some sausages on the BBQ, yum.