Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

And here is our first Muscovy duckling: discovered late afternoon all beautifully dry and fluffy and already in possession of a very loud cheep.... Without interfering too much we could see that several other eggs were pipping - the shells were cracked, signs of the ducklings inside beginning the 'break out'. As we explored on 26th April, it's hard work hatching from an egg. Duck eggs have thicker shells than chickens and turkeys but as with all hatching eggs, it is very important that they don't get too dry otherwise the ducklings may have to work extra hard to break free - they can really wear themselves out with trying. It is not unusual for both chicks and ducklings to die in their shells when there are problems with humidity: this is such a shame when they had got as far as being a fully formed bird.
We hope that our female ducks get the humidity right: after all they are doing it the natural way. On the 14th May we mentioned how a swim is part of the daily break from nest-sitting duties and returning to the nest with damp feathers hopefully keeps the humidity just right. We moved the broody Indian Game chicken away from the nest this afternoon as we really don't want her to bond with any of the ducklings. We have now purchased some Legbar chicken eggs and our plan tomorrow is to give her and her sister (also broody) six each...
The second photo is of our very handsome 'dad' Grape (although he is a lonely dad at the moment, with all four of his 'wives' sitting on eggs!!).
It's not all good news though: our few days of success as far as the magpies go ran out today, as we had eggs being stolen both from the barn and the chicken houses. It is possible our hawk is only being effective by the door he is hanging above and that the magpies are now getting in another door. It also seems that the CDs hanging in the doorways of the chicken houses are no longer working either! Aside from the annoyance of losing eggs, magpies can carry nasty bugs or creepy crawlies and pass them onto our chickens: not something we want at all. We may be purchasing the decoy owls or even revisiting the Larsen Trap idea (see 15th May).
And in even more bad news, we are sad to report that our three female Bobwhite quail have died. We lost one a few days ago and the other two today. They appear to have stopped eating and research suggests this may have been caused by bacteria getting into their system. We are talking to a specialist breeder and also our vet to see if we can work out what has happened. We may need to cull the remaining birds...