November 2025, Hello community!
Thank you for being part of our small homestead community. We are so glad to share our journey with you and keep you posted on our progress and life on the farm.
In this weeks newsletter we want to share our livestock updates, our love of ducks and our diary challenge! So here goes:
More New Life!
On the 1st ofNovember, Lena, our older Nigerian Dwarf Goat, finally gave birth to two gorgeous male kids whom we have named Cesar and Casper. This was such a relief because Lena was huge and Mabel her daughter had just popped out two female kids 4 weeks before, and she was smaller.
I had been so worried, I was checking her throughout the night every 2 to 4 hours to see if she was ok or facing any birth complications (for 3 weeks). We were starting to make jokes on the farm that Lena was just full of gas but then we started seeing movement in her belly and we knew the arrival was imminent. On Saturday, the day after halloween I checked Lena at 5:30am and then got up at 7:45am. I walked into her barn and was immediately shocked to see 2 huge fluff balls there, one of which was standing. It was amazing. There was no mess, no drama and to our shock she was just relaxing with her boys, happy for us to inspect them and dip their umbilical cords in iodine. I can not tell you how happy I felt to welcome two wonderful boys to our goat herd. They are absolutely perfect!
And so, now we have 4 beautiful kids on the farm and it is hard to get much done, but just spend time enjoying these precious moments, letting them climb on us and seeing their development each day.
The Ducklings!
Just to add a little chaos to our new homestead life, we had an amazing successful hatch in October, so we now have 16 little ducklings on the farm, we are busy keeping warm and fed. I do not think I have spoke must about them until late, buy we are making plans to sell our ducklings and encourage homesteaders to have ducks as part of their farm family!
We have really grown to love having ducks on the farm and I thought I would list the things I love about ducks here on my blog this week. When we first collected our ducks, we already had an established flock of about 11 hens laying for us. I did not know what to expect with ducks and it took me a while to get used to having them around. I will say now, however, I much prefer them to chickens and I am going to give you a quick summary of why here!
- Garden support, I have really started enjoying taking my ducks and ducklings in to the garden and spending time with them there. We work together, looking for pests such as slugs, snails and caterpillars. It is so much fun having them with me and they are much less destructive to my my plants and soil. The chickens dig everything up and the ducks just nibble and rest between snacks.
- The eggs are far better. Without a shadow of a doubt I much prefer the taste and results of cooking with duck eggs. Our runner duck, Yoko, lays an egg a day most of the year. We have other ducks and we find that the eggs make fabulous cakes and omelettes. We also have a customer who purchases eggs from us because she is allergic to hen eggs.
- Mess. This is an arguable one because ducks do need a lot of water and they can make a lot of mess playing and stomping in water at night. We have designed our own drinking systems to minimise this. My preference however, is that they sleep on the ground, not perched and so I find cleaning the coup quicker and the poop just dissolves with water. So if you get your methods right, I think they are easier to manage. I hate cleaning the hen coup because they perch high and the poop is splattered everywhere. They also poop a lot more than ducks.
- They stay where you put them! We find it much easier to manage where we keep our ducks because they can not jump fences. Yesterday one of our hens decided to jump in with the dogs where they had a little play with her and traumatised her. She is ok thankfully but I always feel that the hens are getting into places they shouldn´t,, and my ducks just stay put in low level fencing.
- Relationships. Ducks are very shy and skittish, but they remember their routine and they love treats. it is so rewarding sharing time with them while you potter around the farm and the garden. They will follow you and sit with you, while hens stay much more dispersed and independent.
Well that is about it. I didn´t mention that ducklings are far more cuter than chicks, because I do think that is a bit of bias on my part and I have so many at the moment!
What´s coming up this week on the farm?
We are getting ready to open for "Pony Treks" in December! This is super exciting for us. We will be opening our doors for pony treks and events from December and we are making sure we offer some fantastic activities for children who visit the farm.
We have planted our big field for next years activities. We hope to offer some fun activities next year with the goats and so this extra space is going to make a huge difference to our farm. We are also, expanding our permaculture efforts to improve our food stocks next year.
Our challenges (oh there are many but this is just the main challenge of the month or maybe year!)
Yes there are always challenges. Developing a dairy herd of goats is turning out to be a real challenge. We need to grow in this area and at the moment, I can not even find dairy goats to purchase and add to the farm. While we have some goats here on the farm, they have never been used for dairy milkings. So we have to integrate this into our herd through breeding and training. We will keep you posted on this journey!
If you would like to see our updates from the farm and the nutty things that happen, I recommend you join us on Instagram and/or TikTok, where I put daily updates on my story and feed.
If not, I am absolutely delighted to have you here reading our Blog Posts, be sure to send us a hello and tell us where you are from, so we can say hi back!
Best wishes, Blessings and Love to You All!
From,
Rebecca and the Wild Trails Homestead Family!
