Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

Still no kidding news and today all the pygmy goat girls seemed very active, bright eyed and alert and showing no signs whatsoever, that they might be about to give birth... It really is a fun waiting game!!
And so to our Bluebelle chicken in the photos. All winter she has had bare patches on her back and wings, partly from moulting but also some from cockerel damage in the autumn. And yet all winter she has carried on laying eggs rather than putting her energies into re-growing her feathers. In the first photo (taken a week ago) despite looking scruffy, she has a fabulously red comb - a sure sign of a healthy chicken who is laying well!!! As we have moved into mid-February however, we were getting rather worried that she might NEVER re-grow her feathers at all.
And then in the last 48 hours, she has started to lose even more feathers but just as quickly we noticed the new pin feathers coming through (second photo). What a relief. Notice too how her comb is less red in the second photo - we have not had an egg from her for a few days now, as at long last her energies ARE going into her feather re-growth!! Hopefully she will be looking great in a week or so and can then start to think about laying for us again!!
Mother nature certainly knows how to get it right!!!