Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

These are the three chosen ones: these chickens have now been entrusted with hatching our Orpington eggs and the 21-day countdown has now begun... It has actually all been a bit of a nightmare with our broodies! At one time it looked as though we had six of them but the trouble was that some had gone broody in places we did not WANT them to be broody and it is not always easy to persuade a broody chicken to be broody elsewhere. Either she keeps going back to her original place OR she gives up and stops being broody altogether. One chicken in particular has been particularly awkward!! She is one of our bantams and she has made it her mission in life to sit on a load of duck eggs in the duck house. After four days of trying to persuade her to go elsewhere (including giving her some different eggs in a totally different house and shutting her in), we have given up. She is now sitting on no less than ELEVEN duck eggs and it has to be said, she does seem to be managing to keep them all warm!! Our only concern here is that Muscovy eggs take 34 days to hatch and chicken eggs take a mere 21. We will need to keep a close eye on her to make sure she is getting off her nest at least once a day and eating, drinking and pooing!!
But back to these three: from left to right we have a Pekin bantam, a Light Sussex and a Red Orpington. The bantam has eight eggs: two Buff Orpingtons, four Gold-Laced Orpingtons and two Blue Orpingtons. The others have 11 each: five Buff, four Gold and two Blue. All three birds are in nestboxes inside the barn away (on the whole) from the hustle and bustle of all the other birds. (Our gang of 13 chicks still sleep in the barn at night but we make sure they spend the day outside enjoying sun and grass.) We will candle in a week and let you know the results: we are cautiously optimistic as the breeder we bought these eggs from has a good reputation and often gets 100% fertility (although 100% hatching does not necessarily follow...).
We also set the geese eggs in the incubator - another long wait here as, like the ducks, these eggs will take 34 days to hatch!! And finally, it looks as though Apple is starting to go broody. She has been adding to a clutch in the duck house for the last week or so and tonight stayed on them rather than going to the chicken house to sleep (which she normally does).
All the goat kids are doing brilliantly, as are the mums: it is a very busy smallholding at the moment and it's wonderful!!