Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

We ran out of time today to get the goats tagged (tut tut!!) so this will now be tomorrow. We heard today that the family who have bought the four pygmy goat kids are coming to collect them this Friday so it is important the tagging is sorted by then and the kids are over the stress of having it done.
Talking of sales, our Muscovy ducks have proved VERY popular and we have now sold ALL the females from our first two broods. In total we have sold 15 which now leaves us with 11 males so we are very pleased with the male/female ratio here. These 11 males however, will almost definitely end up in the freezer!!
The first picture below is of some of the ducklings from our third and fourth broods and shows two of our all-yellow ones as day olds (top half). Underneath are the same two ducklings at just under seven weeks old. At the moment it looks as though they will all be grey and white with one of them (at the front of the photo) looking as though she will be mainly white. It is incredible how clean and smart they look, particularly as their true feathers develop. They spend more and more time preening now. Apple (our white duck) is the only adult duck still with her ducklings. Amazingly, even though she herself only hatched three (and had a further three given to her), she now has a brood of eleven as she 'stole' five from Banana. Banana herself gave up being a mum a good three weeks ago: she obviously did not like the competition!!!
The right hand photo is of two of our Buff Orpington chicks now aged just under nine weeks old. A friend was round today and we were looking at how many we thought were female. In the photo we think we have one male and one female: any idea which may be which? The difference at this stage of their growth is that the male Orpington's combs are just that little bit larger and more obviously, they are redder as well. So the top bird we believe to be the male. If you look closely you can also see that he has more of a 'wattle', the fleshy bit immediately below the start of his beak. In addition, the difference in size between the males and females is starting to get more obvious with the males being bigger and with bigger legs too! In another week or so we should also start to see more pointed feathers on the males and rounded ones on the females. The best news is that out of our seven Buff Orpingtons we think we may have four females: we will keep you posted on this one!!