Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

The poultry paddock was not looking great this morning after some quite heavy rain in the night so we hosed down some of the heavy-duty gate mats from the top paddock and laid them down to try to stop too much poaching (the grass getting churned up into mud). Jupiter and Neptune's padded feet (as opposed to the hooves of the sheep and goats) are not too hard on the land BUT they can and do still make their mark if it gets too wet.
We did have quite a bit of sunshine again in between the showers today and at one stage when we looked in the poultry houses, not a single bird was inside: they were all out enjoying the fresh air, grass and opportunity to freerange.
AND best news of all, SIX out of today's ten chicken eggs were laid in the house, NOT in the barn. They are learning fast! The snowdrops from earlier in the week and today's fabulous sight of masses of frogs in our garden pond, has made us realise spring is trying to appear. The sheep are due to lamb in three to four weeks, the pygmy goats in just two months and the dairy goats only a couple of weeks later...
It will be interesting to see what happens to the current relationships within the goat groups when the new kids come along. As we have commented before and as these pictures show, the bonds between Onion and Pepper (left hand photo) and Nutmeg and Thyme (right hand photo) are still enormously strong. When Curds (our eldest dairy goat) gave birth last year she did turn her back on Cheddar and Gorge (her kids from 2012) BUT as soon as her new kids went (to new homes), she turned her attentions back to her original twins! Last year was the first time we kept any of the pygmy kids so we will have to see how it all works out with Onion and Thyme and what impact it will have on Pepper, Garlic and Nutmeg when their mums have new kids this year.