Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Today we returned to winter conditions: wind, rain and cold. Most of the animals voted with their feet and wanted to stay inside, all that is except the ducks and geese - understandable as they have permanent 'waterproof coats' on - and the alpacas!!! The alpacas don't have waterproof coverings in the same way as the ducks and geese (see posting on 1st January for a fab picture of water 'rolling' off a duck's back) and in fact they ended up looking drenched. Their coats are so thick however that the water doesn't actually reach their skin and make them cold. When we get Jupiter and Neptune shorn in June you will see how very skinny they are as most of their body really is fur!!
We have not mentioned Napoleon our male turkey for a while. Jack had another nasty pecking from him this week when she was egg collecting even though she was more than aware of him and doing her best to avoid him. The reality is that his aggressive nature has not really improved despite having some days when he has not been so bad and so today we took the very hard decision that he had to go. Using our stunner, we therefore humanely ended his life! This is the first time on our smallholding we have had to 'cull' an animal due to aggression. We hope we won't have to do so again!!!
We also culled three of our surplus cockerels: as mentioned before, it is important not to have too many cockerels firstly because they may fight but also because it means the chickens may get mated with far too much. Cockerels stand on the chicken's backs to mate (and often grab their necks as well) and this can result in feather loss and scratched skin! One of our Indian Game chickens is a bit of a 'favourite' and she has a slightly bare back already.
So a sad day but as ever on any smallholding/farm there is always new life to look forward to: next for us are the eggs our broody bantam is incubating (as candled yesterday) - due date is around 27th March!! And in the meantime, the photo below shows all our young turkeys from last August - Napoleon is in there somewhere enjoying his sunny, free range life!!