Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Our latest chicks and goslings are now almost a week old and as today was a delightfully sunny day we encouraged their 'mums' to take them outside. They did not need much persuasion and a happy day was spent learning to peck and scratch and to avoid the many larger birds that share the paddock. It is actually quite amazing how well all the different breeds and species and sizes get on. Most of the time there are very few squabbles, broody mums defend their chicks and the slightly older chicks get told off by the adult chickens but generally the days pass really peacefully and without any incidents.
It was fabulous to see the two goslings and seven chicks out and about. The goslings are hilarious, at just six days old they are already getting too big to tuck under 'mum's' wings. As you can see from the photo, getting a head under some feathers is just about all they can manage!! Their Red Orpington mum is very patient as they try unsuccessfully to bury themselves under her, she ends up having to do most of the work by opening her wings as wide and high as she can and then virtually walking over the goslings before settling down on top of them.
The chicks in the left hand photo are learning to go running over when their Silkie 'mum' calls them, because this means she has found a tasty bit of food on the ground. She calls them and then scratches and pecks and they rush over and also start scratching and pecking. When the Red Orpington calls her goslings, they don't respond in the same way at all, geese of course don't naturally scratch and peck at the ground in the same way as chickens!! Instead they spend their days occasionally pecking at the ground but mainly eating the tips of the grass and already our young goslings have been seen with heads on one side, beaks wrapped around a blade of grass and biting it off into their mouths. They did not have to be 'taught' this behaviour, it is one they are born with and so 'programmed' to do. If they were being raised by a goose, she might teach them where the 'best' grass is but they would already know how to eat it.
More on our chicks later in the week, what is fascinating about these is how they were hatched as a set of three and four (by a 'mum' each) and yet are now a group of seven with TWO mums!!!