Lucky Duck Farm

12/04/2016

1:30 this afternoon

12/04/2016

Noon

12/04/2016

Also glad not to be on the road today because this is happening:

10:30 this morning

12/04/2016

Sorry folks, no egg delivery today! It's that time of year again, so we'll be switching to every-other-week deliveries to Open Produce for the duration of the winter. Production was especially low this week because we have another mink causing mayhem. Our duck population has been decimated (ducks sleep on the ground, making them more vulnerable than the chickens who roost up high). The surviving birds are a bit traumatized and not laying very much.

08/01/2016

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2016/08/01/these-may-be-the-most-magnificent-portraits-of-goats-and-sheep-youll-ever-see/?hpid=hp_no-name_photo-story-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

When Kevin Horan moved to a quaint island in Washington state, along with it came a small herd of woolly neighbors.

07/22/2016

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ywdqiyoQNgQ

The Faroe Islands have some of the most beautiful roads in the world. It is impossible to describe what it feels like driving through the green valleys and u...

07/22/2016

Tired of waiting for Google to map the archipelago, Faroe Islanders have launched Sheep View 360, enlisting their ovine population to do the leg work

06/18/2016

Makin' hay while the sun shines!

04/15/2016

Happy Friday! This little guy and his brother were born early yesterday morning. The lamb count is now at 8, and they are all boys. For the curious, this lamb's daddy is 100% Icelandic and mama is 50% Katahdin, 25% Polypay, 25% East Friesian. The product of such mixed-up breeding? 100% adorable.

04/04/2016

Just witnessed this in the barn. "Gee, grandpa, what nice horns you have!" Heimdal wins the award for most tolerant ram ever.

03/23/2016

Dear Lucky Duck Farm Fans, please consider supporting this GoFundMe campaign to help our friends, Jim and Kim Hart. They are genuinely good people, and we think the world of them and what they are trying to do on their farm. Many of you have asked us over the years, "what more can I do to help?" and we have usually answered, "keep buying good products from good farmers, and keep asking questions about how your food is being produced." Well, today you have the chance to do a little more. If you're lucky enough to have room in your budget, please please please consider lending a helping hand to some incredibly well-deserving folks. Jim and Kim were students of mine in the Central Illinois Farm Beginnings class several years ago, they are hard-working, kind, capable people, and they are trying to recover from some really rotten luck this past winter. You may not know them personally, but you know us, and it would mean the world to us if some of the Lucky Duck extended family could show some love to Hart's Heritage Farm. Thanks!

I am a small independant farmer in Central Illinois. Farming is in my DNA, the picture is of me when I was just a little guy sitting on my Great Grandfather's Fergusen TE20 tractor. I am at my Grandpa, Gussie Cary's farm and his farm store is behind me. Last December was the worst time I have had...

03/21/2016

Who's that handsome guy on page 13 of the latest Modern Farmer magazine? (PS - Thanks go to Lynn Freehill-Maye for a great piece and Kelty Luber and Kevin Miyazaki for the photos!)

03/17/2016

One day old and nursing like champs. Look at those little tails wag!

03/16/2016

Proud papa Luigi, the one-horned wonder.

03/16/2016

Surprise! Twins this morning out of Lena, who barely even looked pregnant. We weren't expecting to start lambing for another couple of weeks!

03/02/2016

We want to see this movie SO BADLY!!!!!! Please, movie gods, bring Icelandic sheep to a screen in Chicago soon!

In a remote Icelandic farming valley, two brothers who haven't spoken in 40 years have to come togeth

03/02/2016

We might have to start putting pj's on our lambs. That would _really_ make the neighbors talk!

11/24/2015

Sunday night we had another mink attack on the chicken coop which resulted in the deaths of two of our hens. So last night we set a live trap, baited with one of the dead chickens and we actually caught the culprit! Today we're going to release him at our friend's place about 20 miles away (he doesn't have chickens and he has 20 acres of native prairie).

11/22/2015

11/22/2015

Well, it looks like a winter wonderland out here, but ice with snow on top makes for slippery roads, so no egg delivery to Open Produce today. We'll try to get up there with eggs tomorrow if things improve. Sorry to disappoint, but we've had enough highway scares for this year!

10/24/2015

We've been up since 4:30, fed and watered all of our critters in the pitch dark, packed everything up for market, and are about to head north for our last farmers market of the season! We'll have chicken eggs, very few duck eggs, and the last of our 100% grass-fed Black Angus ground beef. Since we'll be sold out of beef after today and the chickens are slowing down for winter, we will not be attending the final outdoor 61st St Farmers Market on Oct. 31st. We will keep delivering eggs to Open Produce until the chickens stop laying.

10/10/2015

Important Note: We will not be at the 61st St Farmers Market today! We are both sick, not deathly ill, but in need of some rest and concerned about spreading germs at a bustling market. We will return to the market next week. We do still plan to deliver eggs to Open Produce, and will bring more than double the usual delivery. Eggs should get there today around noon or a little after.

08/02/2015

pile of cute

07/23/2015

Time to help our farmers market! The American Farmland Trust is taking nominations for the best farmers markets in a variety of categories. 61st Street Farmers Market would love to be nominated, especially in the categories of Healthy Food for All and/or Pillar of the Community. If you have a minute to spare, please check out http://markets.farmland.org/ and cast your vote!

We’re looking for the cream of the crop, the best of America’s farmers markets.
Your recommendation can earn national awards and recognition for your farmers market.

07/19/2015

If we seem awfully excited about these piglets, it's because we are. Although we've been raising pigs on our farm for the past three years, this is the first time we've had our own piglets born right here at Lucky Duck Farm. Our friends Donna and Keith at South Pork Ranch recently sold their farm, and with it went our source of healthy, heritage breed feeder pigs, so, in a slightly unplanned move, we decided to buy two of their sows and start breeding pigs for ourselves. It has been dangerously hot and humid (heat index of 114!) the past two days, so we are acting like nervous mother hens out of a very real concern for the health and well-being of Gidget and her babies. We want to say a big, huge thank you to our friends Keith Parrish, Terry Bachtold, and Judy Bachtold for taking time out of their busy lives to check on our babies while we were away at market yesterday.

07/19/2015

A little blurry, sorry! Will try to get better photos and video soon

07/19/2015

Mama Gidget enjoying her supper while babies poke around

07/19/2015

Babies starting to explore at the end of their first day