Our neighbour Cassie will shortly be undertaking some work experience with us. Little did we know Cassie is also a very talented young photographer. One fine day in June, the following farm photos were taken throughout the property.
(from top left to right)
Dino is the name of the alpaca featured in the picture above, and I have a very complicated relationship with him. He tends to lead all of the other alpacas astray – running away when they’re meant to get penned for shearing. Dino also dunks his front legs in watering troughs whenever he has the opportunity. He’s a handsome unit, but goodness he causes trouble.
Our Indian Runner ducks are all-white and very popular amongst show breeders. Some of these Runners are able to lay a duck-egg-blue coloured egg. And they’re hilarious to watch running around – very similar to waddling penguins. We’re starting to move some of these ducks on to new homes because they aren’t as good layers as the Khaki Campbells.
Khaki Campbell drakes look stunning with their colourful plumage. KC drakes also tend to be prolific maters and *service* many more duck hens than other breeds – sometimes up to 1:14 rather than 1:6! Shortly we’re trialling the KC drakes’ meat to see if it’s something worth pursuing. In the meantime we can take some beautiful farm photos…
Khaki Campbell hens enjoy their time in the sunshine. These KCs are clearly not pure-bred but have done a great job for us thus far. I really like the blue tips on some of their wings, and we’ve had some absolutely stunning ducklings hatch from these girls. They lay many duck eggs for us, and we’re thankful!
[featured_products per_page=”12″ columns=”4″ orderby=”date” order=”desc”]100 baby chicks arrived at Heritage Farm last year, and we grew them all up from day-old. Unfortunately not all of our female chickens were entirely female! 5 roosters have fully grown and lived a perfectly wonderful life carving out their niche in the farm. For now we’ve left them largely to their own devices but we’ll have to find a solution for them at some point. Just not yet!
An escapee chicken jumped our six foot high fox proof fence and discretely laid a clutch of eggs under the agapanthus’ in our driveway. Clearly avoiding all predation and sorting out her own needs in the process. One morning one of our Farm Stay guests went outside only to find this escapee with her brood of 15 baby chicks of all different colours! While not in this tranche of farm photos, she’s done a wonderful job raising the chicks to a month old.
That’s a good summary of what’s been going on at Heritage Farm recently, but we also have a video of Heritage Farm in Winter 2018 that you can also check out.
