Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Katherine, our female Bourbon Red turkey, has become something of a tyrant when she is in the barn with her young chicks! It is hard to remember that we were worried about whether she would make a good 'mum': her mothering skills now consist of chasing and if possible, grabbing, any other bird that comes within a metre of her seven chicks and at times the grabbing has resulted in her having a mouthful of feathers!!! It seems to us that she has become particularly protective since the gang of 15 turkey chicks has been out and about more. We wonder if she recognises them as the same species and so sees them more as a threat?? They aren't at all: in fact they are only two weeks older than her young chicks so still very little.
In the photo below taken this evening you can see she was perching - this is not so great for her chicks who still really want to snuggle underneath her as they do when she sits on the floor. She may be holding her wings out for them but it was impossible to fit all seven underneath. We decided to move them all to a house of their own in the top paddock where she cannot perch and equally importantly, where she will not be able to terrorise the other birds in the barn!! During the day everything will be out and about together on the grass and there will be space to escape so we hope just separating Katherine at night will do the trick.
And this morning we welcomed our latest arrivals: NINE Orpington chicks hatched out by this wonderful Light Sussex from her clutch of 12 eggs. We think we have four Buff Orpingtons, four Gold-Laced and one Blue! Strangely though the other eggs (seven under a Red Orpington hen and five under a bantam) are showing no signs of hatching at all and yet all eggs were put under the broody mums at the same time... We have been speculating about what may be happening here: will these eggs just hatch later and if so why, have they died for some reason, have the hens not kept them at the right temperature?? The official due date was last night so a day late is not unusual but for ALL the eggs in each of these two clutches not to have yet hatched IS unusual. We will update you tomorrow on this: fingers crossed for good news!!