Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Our battle with the magpies is NOT going well - we have hung a load of CDs in the entrances to the barn and poultry houses and it looked as though this HAD been having an effect and that we weren't losing as many eggs each day. (The idea behind using CDs is that the sun reflects off their metallic surfaces, which scares the magpies away. Magpies are meant to be attracted to shiny objects but not ones that move, such as CDs blowing in the wind.) Today however a magpie must have come into the barn when one of the broody hens was off her nest getting food and drink, as when we did our usual afternoon check we found one cracked egg and one missing altogether. This is very bad news as we are now down to 28 Orpington eggs from our 30 and so straight away our hatch rate is reduced! Plus the eggs that were left were covered in sticky yolk and had to be wiped clean!
As with our fox problem before Christmas, we would like to find a 'humane' way of dealing with our unwelcome guests. As well as the hanging CDs idea, it is possible to buy 'decoy' plastic owls which if positioned correctly can scare the magpies away. Other solutions are a little more drastic! Some farmers will shoot magpies and then hang them from fences and gates (this is meant to put off more magpies from coming too close), whilst others use something called a Larsen trap. This is where you get a 'live' magpie from another area and put it in a big cage with two compartments. Magpies are very noisy and very territorial so if one magpie hears another magpie it does not recognise, its natural reaction is to want to chase it away. As it flies down to investigate it then gets trapped in the second compartment and so can be disposed of. The live bird is known as the 'call' bird and can be kept in the cage for several weeks (with food and water). For the moment our next plan is to buy a decoy bird or two as well as continuing to collect our eggs as often as we can so that the chances of the magpies finding them are reduced! The losses from the poultry houses do seem to have been less... As ever, we will keep you posted!!
A side effect of all this is that we have had various broken egg shells around the smallholding and unfortunately chickens also love eating eggs - bizarre but true! Thus the remains of a broken turkey egg from a couple of days ago was set upon by four or five of our own birds (one of whom was caught on camera). This is not a habit we wish to encourage!!!
But there are plenty of other really great things happening: including Katherine's young turkeys thoroughly enjoying being outside for a second day (as the photos show) and her continuing to be a great mum to them.