Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

It's all go with the turkeys at the moment: four out of the five of them are laying and Napoleana (second photo) is sitting on lots of eggs and showing all the signs of going broody...
Every year our turkeys make quite a drama about WHERE they want to start laying and the mornings are often filled with the distressed sounds of crying turkeys as they wander from house to house and everywhere in-between, trying to decide the perfect spot to lay their eggs. Josephine (first photo) has ended up choosing the old chicken compost heap: not the best of places as both she and of course us, have to battle with brambles to get in and if it rains, both bird and egg get wet. We put some fresh straw in there so at least the eggs don't get dirty from the compost and we try to collect the eggs as soon as we can. Unfortunately, four days ago, Katherine decided this was a great spot too and so now as soon as Josephine has finished, she pops in and gets settled to lay hers!!!
Victoria was spotted laying in the egg basket in the barn yesterday but then made her way over to the nest boxes in the barn itself: it is a fair way for her to travel but at least the egg is laid in a clean space. We don't think Camilla is laying yet unless she is sneaking off to a place we have not yet discovered. We hope not.
And so back to Napoleana who was the first to start laying back on 14th March and who since 20th we think has laid one egg EVERY day. A friend of ours has taken her early eggs and the first few from Josephine but as of yesterday, there are now a grand total of SEVENTEEN eggs in the nest where Napoleana has been laying (six from her, the rest from Josephine, Katherine and Victoria). She spent most of the morning on the nest but tonight was back in the main chicken house so she is not yet fully broody but, she seems to have claimed the nest and so we are hopeful she will start to sit properly in the next few days.
Interestingly, Orange, one of our Muscovy ducks, looks as though she might be starting to go broody as well and she seems to have chosen the same house that Napoleana is in!!! Banana is on day 10-ish out of 31 of her egg-sitting and at the last count had twenty in there!!!