Mrs Down's Diary May 6 2009

Still some bullocks waiting to go to market, but apart from that, only noisy guinea fowl and scatty banties around the yards.

All change soon, however. This weekend several thousand day old ducklings will arrive.

Their pens are ready, each equipped with drinkers and heaters. They are placed at the end of the big open foldyard so that the gallons of water they they love to splash about, will all drain into the main foldyard drain.

Each pen has to be netted over as otherwise our local sparrow hawks will look upon the ducklings as a generously provided free take away dinner service.

The goslings on order from a specialist breeder/hatcher (no idea what the name is) will also soon be here.

The only problem is that they will be out and about in the paddock before the Aylesbury ducklings which we hope will soon be hatching out under various banties, are taking their first nibbles at, and exploration of, the grass.

Geese are so bossy. Even when we have kept ducklings and goslings together in the same hut, the geese, as they grow, soon take advantage of their size and strength and routinely harass and bully the smaller ducklings. Just teaches the ducklings to waddle faster.

With so little rain and a drier spring, the water level in the pond in the paddock has dropped dramatically.

Usually the ducklings and goslings can enjoy a good splash around until well into June. They will be lucky to learn to swim the way the water is drying up.

It has made us a bit concerned about the danger to calves from one of the ponds in the fields where the cattle graze.

Again because the pond is drying up ahead of time, it is getting increasingly muddy and boggy around the edges.

The cattle wade in to take a drink as they seem to prefer the pond to their drinking troughs. The problem is that the calves are still relatively young, follow their Mum's example and then struggle to negotiate the mud. Quite a number of the calves are sporting mud encrusted legs.

The worry is that one of the calves might damage a leg if they overbalance trying to pull themselves out of the mud. "I've never seen it happen" says John "but, I'd rather not risk it," so fencing the pond in is one of the jobs for today.

This particular pond was absolutely heaving with tadpoles several weeks ago. Jessica our granddaughter took a bucket full home so that she could see a few hatching in her "frog habitat" .

The rest she took for her school's mini aquarium. All went well at home until her brother Ollie decided to investigate. By tipping the "habitat" upside down.

Luckily, the tadpoles survived. Psychologically scarred no doubt by the trauma of moving from pond to frog habitat to floor to mixing bowl to jar and back to the farm pond. All they have to worry about now is to avoid being trodden on by a cow.