Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Enter the cockerel: it is possible to buy fertile eggs on the internet (amazing I say) but whether you buy them in or want to hatch your own eggs, a cockerel is still essential.

On the Relaxed smallholding there are usually four or five cockerels, including my favourite bantam cockerel who is actually quite a gentleman. They aren't all gentlemen though and some can hurt us girls when they tread on our backs with their big feet and sharp claws (just ask one of the Indian Games!).

When they mate with us the sperm can last for up to three weeks, which means in theory every egg we then lay from that point on could be fertile. BUT nothing will start to grow until either we sit on the eggs or they get put in an incubator. Clever, eh??