Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Today was the perfect day for our Muscovy ducklings to discover the outside world: blue skies, effortless sunshine and only a slight breeze! Pear has been fantastic, making sure all 15 ducklings are with her all the time (they are ALL in the photo, have a count to make sure...) and quietly hissing at anyone or anything that gets too near. Compared to chickens and turkeys however, it is a very different style of mothering. Chickens and turkeys constantly talk to their chicks: they keep up an almost continuous 'set of instructions': 'follow me', 'look at this', 'don't do that', 'this way', 'try this'... The communications between the Muscovy and her ducklings on the other hand, seems to be much more 'visual'. The ducklings appear to follow mum because they are looking at her and not because she is calling them. The other difference we have noticed is in teaching the youngsters to eat and drink. With turkeys and chickens, the adult finds the food, whether chick crumbs put out by us or something more natural such as an insect or seed, and they call the babies over to have a peck at it. As we watched Pear and her ducklings today they all seemed to be dabbling in the grass on their own, albeit in the same area. Again, there was no calling over to share in what had been found.
We have mentioned before about the differences between chicks raised by a broody adult bird compared to those raised under a heat lamp by humans, and concluded that in the end all the chicks grow up knowing how to eat, drink, scratch the ground and perch. This suggests all those behaviours are within the bird and don't necessarily have to be taught. (Maybe though chicks raised by a mother bird learn them quicker or are actually better at them??) Ducklings certainly know how to swim without needing an adult duck to show them: something we have seen for ourselves when ducklings raised by a chicken 'discover' the pond and naturally start paddling (leaving the chicken on the side having a major panic attack, mind you...).
We have been a bit quieter on the magpie front today (but our Larsen trap has been ordered) but we have noticed an increase in the number of wild rabbits running around our land. We have one particular baby who takes great delight in appearing at all times of the day and then immediately rushing off underneath one of the poultry houses as if to say: 'now you see me... now you don't'. VERY cheeky!!