The Accidental Agrarian

I’m not quite sure how this happened. I seem to get myself stuck in the middle of things quite often. Perhaps I am too good natured. Perhaps I am too game for fun & a lark. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. All I know is I find myself raising ducklings this Autumn when not a duck had been on my horizon all year. But don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad thing. This is fortune taking a turn into interesting & uncharted waters. This is Social Media–and Twitter–working its magic. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain why I have a Rabbitry floor covered in 40 ducklings….

One morning on Twitter, as it so often happens, I was having one of many conversations. This time Kate Hill (@KatedeCamont) & I were discussing Confit, Cassoulet & ducks. When I discovered Kate was coming here from Gascony in the New Year, an idea hatched in my head that we should do one of her confit workshops here. But where to get the duc…hey! Wait a minute! I could raise some here. Before I knew it I was asking Kate all sorts of questions about how the French raise the ducks she uses, and what breed was best and within the hour I had purchased 40 Rouen Ducklings. I flitted back & forth between the calendar and the ordering page to make sure they could be ready in time for a New Year’s Day workshop, aka Duckfest, and I ordered them to arrive as early as possible.

As I readied a place to brood the hatchlings, I naturally tweeted about the venture to build a little excitement about it. Once the ducklings arrived I began photographing them and posting a “Daily Duckling” photo each morning as I walked back from milking and passed by the brooding house. A few people noticed and commented on the ducklings, some noticing that they seemed to have grown. This wasn’t really obvious until this morning when a second batch of ducklings arrived and I could see one week old ducklings next to two day old ducklings. (I ordered two batches of ducks from two different hatcheries so that I could maximize my chances of having unique breeding stock…) After I had posted this morning’s Daily Duckling, two separate people (tweeps in the vernacular) commented that I should keep it up. In answering @GaryGlen I decided that since I was going to keep a few ducks alive after the Duckfest, and selling the extras, his suggestion that people getting attached to the photos wasn’t such a bad thing. Perhaps people could name their favorite duckling/duck? I’ve already thrown out that one might be called Cassoulet and another Margaret–a play on the French term for duck breast: Magret. @PatInOz suggested I name one Kiwi after her nationality.

Here are some daily ducklings for you to view (this will keep updating as the ducks get older…):

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

So, the idea is I’m going to keep up to 4 hens and a drake. Hopefully the best of the flock. These will hopefully become my breeding stock, so that I don’t have to buy day-old ducklings again for a while. Your part in this adventure is to use the power of social media–Twitter especially–to help pick the best names for the ducks. There isn’t a prize for this Herculean effort, just recognition, and perhaps a chance to meet the ducks should you ever drop by the farm. To participate, be sure to follow @duckfest2010 on Twitter, and check out and use the #dailyduckling hash-tag there. You will also be able to keep up to date on the Duckfest’s goings on and catch the adventure of the workshop once Kate & I begin on New Year’s day! For more information about the Duckfest and my other workshops please look here.

Technorati Tags: ducks, ducklings, poultry, waterfowl, rouen duck, livestock, farming, food, meat, confit, cassoulet, french cooking, Kate Hill, twitter, social media

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This entry was posted by Podchef on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 5:08 pm and is filed under Farming, Livestock. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.