Our first ducklings this year!

Earlier this week I was very discouraged about how my nests were doing. There has been more light-and noise pollution in our neighborhood and it had an impact on the way my animals behaved. I was worried more than one broody duck/chicken had abandoned her nest. Sorry about the shaky footage, but those are my…

Onion & mushroom soup with Chinese spices

Many people are familiar with using leftovers from roast chickens to make bone broth for soup. I recently experimented doing this with a duck carcass. I used a Chinese-inspired recipe for the duck, so the bird was cooked with ginger and five-spice. The broth: I simply put the leftover meat and the bones into a…

Introducing: Muscovy ducks

Muscovy (or Barbary) ducks are perhaps most common type of domestic duck that you will find in Dutch and Belgian gardens. Since I was very small my family has often had Muscovy ducks, which we bred for meat and eggs. Several years ago, we decided to keep less animals in the garden, so ducks needed…

Introducing: runner ducks

Ducks are an important part of the Lowland Homestead. Where chickens prefer their living space to be dry, ducks thrive on the humid, cooler weather conditions that are so common in the Netherlands. The breed we know as the runner duck, is originally an Indonesian breed and is well adapted to life around rice paddies….