Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

And here are the heroes of the week!!! Guess what these two have done today??
A clue: it's that time of year when natural food supplies for the 'wilder' inhabitants of the smallholding/ surrounding moor start to dry up. So, we have rats hoping to find food in the barn; birds looking for corn that the poultry has left (or missed); and then of course, there is Mr (or Mrs) Fox, on the look out for easy meals, now that the rabbits and other prey are not quite so abundant!!
Those who have been reading our blog for a while will know that last year we were in despair at losing so many poultry to the fox (or in our case foxes) who thought nothing of appearing any time of the day and helping themselves to various chickens and turkeys. After trying EVERY solution we could think of, we decided to purchase two alpacas, known to be perfect fox guards!!
Since then, our losses have been zero except for a hen that wandered to the very bottom of the smallholding one day and a lone cockerel, out when he should not have been. We had a few near misses when, due to horrendous weather last winter, the alpacas were not always out with the poultry every second but, having seen the alpacas in action, we know that if a fox appears when they are out, they very quickly chase it off.
We have not seen any foxes during the day for months and months but first thing this morning, in that 'in-between' time when the poultry were starting to go outside and Neptune and Jupiter were just finishing off their breakfast inside, a young fox appeared and tried to run off with Banana, one of our female Muscovy ducks. Fortunately, having just opened the pop hole, Jack was still outside and so scared him off. Banana luckily just lost a few feathers but otherwise was unharmed and remarkably she did not appear too stressed either.
We told the boys to hurry up and finish eating and then got them outside. Within the hour the fox was back and we watched with delight as Neptune and Jupiter immediately ran over and chased him off... The only problem we now have is that as you can see, there is not a lot of grass left in the poultry paddock, although just out of shot is a huge hay rack full of hay. Plus, if you are wondering why the tree in the foreground has green moss growing from half way up the trunk, but none growing lower down... well, all we can say is that Jupiter is looking a little green round his lips!!!!