The chooks and ducks are kept in a safe night enclosure and are let out most days to free-range over the rear of the property. Free range is not the right word. These chooks and ducks are cross-country hikers, travelling over acres of green pickings to find the many earthworms. The office politics are very healthy and there has never been a "pecking-order", perhaps because all have arrived as small chicks or ducklings. The rooster is Basil who is very handsome and who looks after the hens most remarkably and sound an alarm call if there could be danger. Basil was taught well by his Dad and finds food for the hens - he will not eat it but will stand over it and then call the hens. If you open a window, it is possible to hear Basil wake up and crow but his voice is very soft and most people never hear it. There is a new young rooster called Rupert.

Dotty is a Pencil Lace Winedot bantam and Orange (right picture) is an Isa Brown. They can be quite friendly, particularly to people with lettuce or bread, but do not like to be picked up. They are such good mothers and Pansy (who was taken by a fox in 2007), even reared some ducklings. The hens are lovely pets and lay a small egg most days when they are not sitting on eggs or rearing a chick

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There are 2 ducks Alice, Samantha and Daisy and a drake Warwick who free range all day but go to bed in their home, with the chooks, every night away from foxes. There are also two little ducklings, now 4 weeks old (December 10). They are very gentle, extremely timid and cannot be picked up or chased. They will not walk past any human, even the hand that feeds them, unless you pretend to look the other way. They lay an egg a day in season which are delicious. There is a Guineau Fowl called Primo who is a delight with his exotic blue and red head and his ability to fly and he acts as a scout for the flock. His adoptive mum is the black Australorp hen Goldie (so he thinks he is a hen).