Farm Day - Exposition on Pond Cleaning
Oct. 10th, 2009 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trystinnHad a very busy afternoon and am suitably tired, likely smelly. Josh and Kevin were kind enough to go get the hay themselves while I cleaned waterers, water bins and took the old hay at the bottom of the hay pile to spread around the duck pen. Each of the solar lights need to be cleaned off, so the solar panels can charge up the small batteries. 6 beautiful fresh bales showed up and were promptly stacked in place in the aisle of Bunhalla. Every single bunny was standing on their back legs, excitedly smelling the air. Josh and Kevin pulled off leaves of hay to toss them in.
"Then we clean the duck pond, which is not half as idyllic. First I unhooked the pond pump from the bio-filter, then disassembled the pond pump and sprayed it out. Once clean, I put the pump back in the pond after attaching the sewer line hose to drain the pond to the base of one of the apple trees. I set a timer for 15 minutes, so we can rotate the sewer line hose to the other trees to ensure they all get a good dose of the fertile pond water.
While the pump empties the pond, I re-arrange hay and rocks around the pond. Once that's done, I clean out the dog house where we feed the ducks (to keep the rain off the food). I lay down a thin layer of hay inside, then refill the feeder and place it back in the dog house. I'd picked up 200 pounds of feed during the week, half rabbit and half duck. I keep a bin for the duck feed in the pen, tucked between the nesting shed and the hutch, which Kevin filled with new feed. While I was doing this in the pen, Josh had tipped over the bio-filtered and emptied half of the water in the basin back into the pond. You need the bacteria in the bio-filter so you can't clean it out completely you'll have to start all over which takes weeks!
We moved the bio-filter to the far side of the butterfly near the back corner of the pen and surrounded it with large rocks. Then comes the really yucky job - shoveling the sludge out of the bottom of the pond. We always find a few tennis balls and rocks. By then, the pond is nearly empty and we've hosed down the sides. Now we unhook the sewer line hose and roll it up for storage. The pump is hooked up to the bio-filter and we use the garden hose to top the bio-filter up. Once that's full, we then re-fill the pond with water which takes about an hour. We dose it with anti-algae solution and place the lights back in at the bottom of the pond.
During this, the ducks have come in for their evening feed and to splash around in the full water bins. It's quite a sight, I'll have to get video of it sometime. There's 4 bins and 12 ducks, so there's a lot of excitement as two ducks paddle around and clean themselves while the others attempt to drink. Libby, who generally hangs out on top of the dog shed now runs up on the Bunhalla roof to get away from the spray.
There's a bit of boom-chicka-wa-wa as first Bernie, then Brutus take turns covering a few ducks in the bins. Water is the natural environment for mating and I'm really glad each bin has a lip where the females can rest their bill. Otherwise, the drakes force the duck's heads under water. I realize that it's natural, but these bins are fairly small and the duck has nowhere to get away from the drake except out of the bin so of course I worry about the ducks drowning during mating. A few of the bigger females just tilt over, so the drakes slide off the females. In this case, they slide off and out of the water bin to fall, quaking and flapping on the ground. That completely cracks us up, a great end to a tiring day."
"Then we clean the duck pond, which is not half as idyllic. First I unhooked the pond pump from the bio-filter, then disassembled the pond pump and sprayed it out. Once clean, I put the pump back in the pond after attaching the sewer line hose to drain the pond to the base of one of the apple trees. I set a timer for 15 minutes, so we can rotate the sewer line hose to the other trees to ensure they all get a good dose of the fertile pond water.
While the pump empties the pond, I re-arrange hay and rocks around the pond. Once that's done, I clean out the dog house where we feed the ducks (to keep the rain off the food). I lay down a thin layer of hay inside, then refill the feeder and place it back in the dog house. I'd picked up 200 pounds of feed during the week, half rabbit and half duck. I keep a bin for the duck feed in the pen, tucked between the nesting shed and the hutch, which Kevin filled with new feed. While I was doing this in the pen, Josh had tipped over the bio-filtered and emptied half of the water in the basin back into the pond. You need the bacteria in the bio-filter so you can't clean it out completely you'll have to start all over which takes weeks!
We moved the bio-filter to the far side of the butterfly near the back corner of the pen and surrounded it with large rocks. Then comes the really yucky job - shoveling the sludge out of the bottom of the pond. We always find a few tennis balls and rocks. By then, the pond is nearly empty and we've hosed down the sides. Now we unhook the sewer line hose and roll it up for storage. The pump is hooked up to the bio-filter and we use the garden hose to top the bio-filter up. Once that's full, we then re-fill the pond with water which takes about an hour. We dose it with anti-algae solution and place the lights back in at the bottom of the pond.
During this, the ducks have come in for their evening feed and to splash around in the full water bins. It's quite a sight, I'll have to get video of it sometime. There's 4 bins and 12 ducks, so there's a lot of excitement as two ducks paddle around and clean themselves while the others attempt to drink. Libby, who generally hangs out on top of the dog shed now runs up on the Bunhalla roof to get away from the spray.
There's a bit of boom-chicka-wa-wa as first Bernie, then Brutus take turns covering a few ducks in the bins. Water is the natural environment for mating and I'm really glad each bin has a lip where the females can rest their bill. Otherwise, the drakes force the duck's heads under water. I realize that it's natural, but these bins are fairly small and the duck has nowhere to get away from the drake except out of the bin so of course I worry about the ducks drowning during mating. A few of the bigger females just tilt over, so the drakes slide off the females. In this case, they slide off and out of the water bin to fall, quaking and flapping on the ground. That completely cracks us up, a great end to a tiring day."
