Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

We had fun and games tonight at bedtime!! But a bit of background first: as you know, a lot of our young birds use the end of the barn to sleep in at night and use the pop-hole to access the top paddock during the day. However, Apple and her ducklings and our Red Orpington with her two goslings have always had their own separate poultry houses in the paddock itself. As we have sold all of our older female Muscovy ducks we decided that there was now room for these two 'families' to sleep in the barn as well. This would give us two less houses to have to clean each day, plus the barn is very secure. So... we did not give them access to their houses tonight (we shut the doors) in the hope that Apple would naturally take her ducklings into the barn and the Red Orpington likewise with her goslings - after all, both have slept there before!!!
We made sure we went outside to see what was happening just before we would normally go to shut everything away - we were aware that it might cause a bit of stress when the birds first discovered their usual night time accommodation was not open!! Well... Apple had indeed led her eleven ducklings into the barn and was nicely settled for the night on the straw. Trouble was all the other ducklings we now have (mainly males from our first two broods) were all queued outside on the ramp and when we started to encourage them to go in we realised why! Apple was not letting them in. She stood as tall as she could and hissed and strutted and the poor ducklings outside (who are actually now bigger than her) were all too scared to go through the pop-hole. We encouraged them as gently as we could to just head on in and go straight through to the middle stall (Apple being in the first one) which thankfully most of them did, with only one or two getting a peck on the bum as they waddled passed.
And what of the goslings and their 'mum'? Well we are saddened to say that the Red Orpington had found herself a perch in the barn and was beautifully settled for the night whilst her two goslings were still outside calling for her and looking very confused about where they should be. We picked them up and popped them into a corner in the barn where they immediately settled. Whether 'mum' will decide to spend the day with them tomorrow remains to be seen. (The photo is of her looking very proud with her new 'babies' just two weeks ago!!)
And to finish off our bedtime dramas ALL the turkeys had decided to perch in one of the trees tonight. They too had to be reminded that the barn was their sleeping accommodation and so encouraged through the pop-hole as well!!!
Hopefully a peaceful night will now be had by all!!!