A while back I made a post about our first homestead milestone, getting our first egg. It’s such a small thing but in my opinion it’s what marks the beginning of a true homestead. It’s one of the quintessential moments every aspiring homesteader dreams about. What about after that first egg? What other milestones do homesteaders look forward to? For me there are probably 4 important homesteading milestones.
The 1st egg. As I said we have already reached this one but it never gets old. Every morning I am excited to go outside and do my duck chores. I even wait until everything is done to see how many eggs we got that morning. Something about it speaks to me.
The 2nd milestone is the 1st babies. Whether they be birthed or hatched the first life produced on our homestead will be amazing!
Next would be the first jar of canned produce from the property. Canned food is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Besides the colors and organization, knowing everything that went into it and having that food security. I can’t even imagine how incredible that feels.
The final milestone in my mind is meat. While, eggs are technically meat. I am talking about chicken, duck, quail, rabbit, pork, lamb, goat or beef. We thought we might have our first duck for Christmas (yes we were planning on doing Christmas, A Christmas Story style!) this year but all of the 6 ducklings we got originally were female so that didn’t work out.
Here's a video of what a broody muscovy sounds like!
We are well on our way to seeing the second milestone. As of 8 days ago we have a broody hen! Iris, who we purchased when she was a couple months old has gone broody. Day 1 she had 2 eggs, Day 2 she had 3 (I added 2 more so 5), Day 3 she had 8 and this morning she was up to 10!! I haven't been able to get a count in a few days so conceivably there are a few more at this point. Muscovies have longer gestation time than chickens at 35 days so it will be a while before we see ducklings. It is also possible she may give up. I’ve heard of a lot of people that have that issue with chickens, no idea if that happens much with Muscovies. They are supposed to be great mothers and I feel very confident she won’t give up half way through. We are looking forward to some babies!!