Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

The boys have been running again today, but for an entirely different reason, for today we had a fox visit! And what an amazingly cheeky, bold and sneaky fox he was! Jupiter and Neptune were outside the poultry area enjoying some of the longer grass at the other end of the paddock and we were back up at the top of the paddock just outside the poultry area, raking and sweeping. The fox appeared, the poultry sounded the alarm and scattered, the boys came running and it was only when Jack waved a rake at him, that the fox decided to slink off - although not before grabbing hold of Orange and pulling a few feathers...
We popped the alpacas back inside the poultry enclosure and were about to head back up to the house when a couple of chickens called out and Jupiter and Neptune suddenly stood to attention and stared intently at the top of the enclosure. What was there?? Only our fox again and this time helping himself to the poultry pellets in the feeder. Neptune started towards him and he swiftly climbed up into the compost heap, only to then turn around to face Neptune as if to say: 'well, are you going to scare me off or what?' At that point Jupiter moved closer too and obviously feeling outnumbered, the fox began to move away. He headed back towards the corner (his usual entry point) and then slunk along the other side of the fence. The alpacas did not take their eyes off him for one second and even after he had finally crawled through the stock fencing back out onto the footpath outside our paddock, they carried on looking and checking. And at all times they placed themselves firmly between the birds and the fox.
We have witnessed the alpaca guarding abilities on several occasions now and it never ceases to amaze us how brilliant a job they do. Today has been another reminder that we cannot do without our boys and how, if we did not have them on our smallholding, we simply could not allow our poultry to free range at all!!!