Welcome to Relaxed Farming
- Alpacas
- Chickens
- Dairy Goats
- Ducks
- Geese
- Pigs
- Pygmy Goats
- Quail
- Rabbits
- Sheep
- Turkeys
- Polytunnel
- Photo Stories
- Video Stories
- Food
- Smallholding Map
- 2013
- 2014
- August
- September
- October
- November
- December
- January
- February
- March
- April
- May
- June
- July
- August
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
Thursday, 9th April 2015
We have names for our latest two dairy kids thanks to our friend Jenny. The darker kid and first born is Splash and the second larger kid (pictured in the first photo) is Wave!!! Perfect! They have both had a great first day and as is entirely usual, have spent most of it sleeping...
And so to Napoleana who is pictured in the second photo sitting on her eggs. She has eighteen in total, some hers and some from Victoria, Josephine and Katherine. Today is officially her second day of 'full' sitting as up until Tuesday she was still laying.
It is very normal for poultry to begin to sit on a clutch of eggs but carry on laying for a day or so. At the point they lay their last egg, the 'full' sitting begins: this means they only have a break and get off the eggs once or twice a day. In addition and most importantly, it is only at this point that the heat from their chest increases to the right temperature to incubate the eggs. Most poultry pluck feathers from their chest and cover the eggs with them. This often leaves bare patches of skin called 'brood patches' and these are perfect for transferring the maximum heat the eggs need. Napoleana has not plucked many feathers but her chest is certainly very warm.
Turkey eggs take 28 days to hatch so we are looking at 6th May as the potential hatching date. Banana's ducklings are due on 26th of this month (after approx 34 days incubation) and our golden bantam's chicks should put in an appearance around the 23rd (after a mere 21 days).
And just when we thought we had things under control we now have Pear laying her duck eggs back in the main poultry house and no less than FOUR birds laying in the same box as the broody bantam - so giving her nine eggs to sit on!!!
AND, at putting away time this evening, we found a broody Indian Game chicken sitting on all the turkey eggs in Katherine's nest and Josephine all broody in the compost heap - sitting incidentally on precisely NO eggs but in the place where, during the day, she usually lays.
Yep, we are definitely not in control here!!!
