The Importance of Being Flexible

"Farming is a series of failures and near-disasters punctuated by intermittent moments of success."

~Farmer Nic

The OPs (original poultry) that started it all.
Farmer Hannah (2016)

One lesson I've learned as a farmer is the importance of being flexible. Almost nothing will go exactly to plan, so the best plan of all is to remain open to straying from the plan. I don't know how many times Farmer Nic and I mapped out a step-by-step plan only to completely modify it midstream out of necessity. The order of chores that need to get done in a day (changeable based on the weather or on how long the previous chore took to do), the spacing of seedlings (changeable when we see how much row space is available for planting), and the deadlines of particular projects (changeable if any "emergencies" arise during the week that divert attention elsewhere): These are all examples of how personal flexibility is tested on the farm. To fight against the inevitable variability is to be miserable as a farmer. It's best to go with the flow and stay in a solution-oriented mindset.

Sometimes flexibility encompasses more than the order in which chores are completed or whether or not project deadlines are met. One time in particular, I had to gather all of the optimistic flexibility I could muster to change the whole farm business plan when the unexpected happened: we moved, and the ducks never laid again.

Ducks at Roundabout Farm

Our first two duck eggs.
Farmer Hannah (2016)

As you may recall from my first blog, Farmer Nic and I started out with two sheep, four ducks, and three chickens. Our favorites were the ducks. It was so much fun to see them splashing in a kiddie pool and then later in a pond in the field formed by winter rain. We found out we could train them to herd, and soon we were herding them into their coops every night through the 1.5-acre field we rented along with the house. The ducks were fairly low maintenance, and they laid lots of eggs. We soon became enamored of them and decided to buy more when the opportunity arose. 40 more, to be exact. Soon, we were collecting 25-30 duck eggs per day. Along with the ducks we acquired came the contracts for selling eggs at two local natural food stores and a restaurant that served duck egg confit. We were collecting, cleaning, boxing, and delivering 30 six-packs of eggs each week to the stores and the rest went in bulk to the restaurant. A housemate came along who was the head chef at another local restaurant, so he bought some duck eggs from us, too, and he made some spectacular dishes. We even went to the restaurant one night so we could try our duck eggs made gourmet. These were the high times of the duck egg biz for us.

We tried this dish by Chef Dustin made with our duck eggs.
Farmer Hannah (2016)

Our dream was to raise even more ducks and sell eggs in even more stores and restaurants. We started raising other animals, too, like pigs and goats, but ducks were the backbone of our plan. Their personalities kept us entertained, and their laying was consistent enough to pay for their feed—plus some. We thought we couldn't go wrong. Even when we were preparing to move, we knew ducks would be in our future. Through some basic research, we found out that they might get stressed during the move…stressed enough to stop laying for a while. We were confident though that even if we missed a week or two of egg deliveries, our ducks would love their new home enough to eventually settle down and start laying again. 

Ducks at Table Bluff Farm

Slugs & snails for the ducks.
Farmer Hannah (2017)

We moved less than 20 miles away, but the ducks did not appreciate the experience at all—and I can't blame them. Once we arrived in the U-Haul, we swung open the gate to the field, rolled up the door to the truck, and pulled out the ramp. We unlatched the door to the small coop we had brought along and the birds came streaming out, all flying feathers and cacophonous quacking. They headed straight for the field after only one brief and exciting detour under the U-Haul and across the street where two frothy dog mouths snapped ravenously, and we were able to herd them into their new, spacious coop. We had two new kiddie pools for them to use and all the slugs and snails they could eat. But even after a month, there were very few eggs laid. We wondered if it could be their feed…maybe there was some essential nutrient they were missing in their diet here? So we changed their feed for a month or two, and still there was no consistent laying like before. Same birds, new location. And then we remembered that this wasn't their first move—when we originally bought them we had transported them to our place in small Amazon boxes, and they had kept on laying. 

The ducks and one of the kiddie pools.
Farmer Hannah (2017)

Then we thought maybe it was the lack of a natural pond like they had had at Roundabout Farm. Because we had lived in the Bottoms, water had naturally pooled in a spot in the field and a nice pond formed. Each day, we let the ducks out of their coop to waddle across the field to the pond, where they spent the majority of their day digging their beaks in the mud for critters, bathing, and swimming. Now, all they had were two blue plastic kiddie pools. Sure, they used them, but they never stayed in them long. Then I thought that maybe they were depressed. They had had a life they loved, proven by the eggs they had laid. And now, they were in a strange spot. It didn't matter that the coop was bigger or even that there was more pasture to roam in. It wasn't where they loved to be.  

Farmer Nic training Farmer the dog about ducks.
Farmer Hannah (2017) 

But we were determined to make the duck egg business work. We planned to dig a large pond for them and hoped that it would do the trick. In the meantime, we thought it wouldn't hurt to raise some new ducklings, and they would grow up together here as one flock. This would be their home and they wouldn't have a shock to their system like our other ducks had. So we raised about 80 more ducklings. Sadly, a few became casualties of training our livestock guardian dog Farmer that they weren't toys. A few others died sudden, mysterious deaths that threw us for a loop. But the majority of the new ducks lived and seemed perfectly content with the kiddie pool system. At about six months, when they should have started laying eggs, a few did. But not consistently, and not many of them. We noticed that the old ducks (who still were not laying) did tend to fight with the new ducks, and their quacking would echo up to the house all through the night. In response, we separated the coop in two with a partition down the middle and built separate doors for them to go in and out.

I do miss watching the flocks migrating across the field.
Farmer Hannah (2017)

It didn't help. The ducks never laid consistently again. The two groups, whether separated at night or not, did not get along and did not seem to ever relax enough to lay eggs. I was completely baffled. At this point, I realized that we could not keep pouring money and time into these ducks when digging out a real pond was still so far out of the realm of financial possibilities. It wasn't fair to the ducks to feel so disturbed, it wasn't fair to our neighbors to have to put up with ceaseless quacking, and it wasn't fair to us to keep spending hard-earned money on ducks meant for laying. We decided to sell them for $10 each, one by one. After a few months, we were able to find homes for them all. I hope that wherever they each are now, they find peace and are able to provide long-delayed eggs for their new owners. But so much of what we had planned banked on the ducks, and now that they were gone, what could we do to fill their role in our farm plan? That's where getting in touch with my ability to be flexible—or rather, my ability to change the plan midstream out of necessity—comes in. Recognizing that I could choose to flow with the circumstances rather than fight against them was pivotal to overcoming the obstacle and creating what we have now.

As far as the egg biz goes, now I am focusing on our chickens and quail. Both are less fussy than ducks and only require water to drink, not a pond for bathing. What was once a roomy duck coop is now a roomy chicken coop. Though we might still install a pond in the future, it will be for aesthetics and a home for frogs. Egg cartons we purchased for duck eggs hold chicken eggs nicely, too. Previously an unthinkable outcome, now the prospect of running a thriving business without ducks in the picture seems completely doable. Really, what choice did I have? When it came down to it, I had two: quit farming or continue farming without ducks. I couldn't bear the thought of giving up so much in the face of an obstacle. I chose to dig in my heels and pursue other avenues, and I've never looked back. If I hadn't been open to letting go of something I thought was simply a given, not only might Table Bluff Farm not have made it past our first year of living here, but by focusing solely on ducks, I would have given up so much else (like helping our sow birth her first litter of piglets or watching our sunflower forest grow). By finding the ability to let go of the expectation of ducks on the farm, I found I could embrace so much more. Not only is Table Bluff Farm thriving, but it is growing and new opportunities abound—opportunities that would have been squelched by a lack of flexibility.

I especially miss this Don King duck.
I might have to get another one.
Farmer Nic (2017)