Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

The question has to be how did these huge bundles of down fit into that size egg?? Goose eggs are huge but these goslings look far too large to have been curled up inside their eggs. What a relief for them to be out!! We are delighted to have hatched these two and whilst not yet pipping, the third gosling looks as though it is alive still so we may have another emerge in the next day or so... fingers crossed!
As with all young birds that hatch inside our incubators, the hope always is that we have a broody 'mum' on standby to take on the parenting role. Luckily our Red Orpington has been broody for a week now and being a big bird, fitting these two under her was not a problem. You may remember this was the chicken that did not do a great job with the fertile Orpington eggs we gave her a few weeks ago and ended up hatching NONE. We are confident however that now she actually has some 'baby' birds, she will be okay. We tucked the two goslings under her this evening (always the best time to do these things) and when last checked (11pm) all looked fine!!
And in other broody news, it's been all go with the ducks. You may remember that Pear left her ducklings to their own devises a couple of weeks ago when they were just over four weeks old, after which they sort of joined up with Orange and her brood. Orange is still with them all at night whilst during the day they go off in little groups and then get back together again. They all LOVE the pond and the early morning routine now always includes a dip, quickly followed by a rest in the grass!! (Or in the case of the duckling in the second photo a good laugh...)
And now Banana has left her ducklings - tonight she was back in the main poultry house with the chickens. Her chicks are exactly four weeks old today. Interestingly, over the last week Apple does appear to have been 'taking' Banana's ducklings away from her. Apple began with six, has often taken eight or nine into her house in the evenings and tonight she has 13 in there with her!!
We are forever counting the birds, we have lost three of the ducklings in the last couple of weeks, two vanished one day (!!) and a third simply died one morning. We have also sold a few as well which is a much nicer way to have fewer birds!!!