Original plan: Keep a mixed flock of ducks and chickens this winter to see whether it's true that waterfowl are better winter layers than land fowl. 

Midsummer plan: Get rid of the ducks ASAP!

Late summer plan: Slaughter all the male ducks (meaning we won't be raising waterfowl again next year), but keep the girls for winter layers.  Now that I treat the ducks like chickens (only giving them open water as a treat once a week --- after all, it rains nearly every day), they're much easier to handle.  Sure, ducks don't forage as well as chickens on a hillside, but the experiment is still worthy of carrying to its natural conclusion...

...Especially since the ducks are starting to lay!  I found the first egg (slightly dirty because we haven't built floor-level nest boxes yet) on Thursday and we tasted it on Friday.  The consensus was --- it tastes like an egg.  (By carefully eating bites of duck and chicken eggs side by side, I could detect a very slightly richer flavor in the former, but the difference was very minor.)  I'll be sure to report laying stats in a few months once day length is at winter levels.