Muscovy duck

If you are a regular follower of CaenhillCC on our social media channels you will have no doubt seen our ducks dancing. They don't quite have moves like John Travolta, but they do a pretty good job. But the question is, why do they dance?

No we aren't secretly playing music to them, it's actually because ducks are real flirts. Those sweet little head bobs are just like the head bobs of those we've seen trying to play it cool on nightclub dance floors. The tail shakes and feather ruffles are all a part of the flirting too, just like us, ducks like to make sure they are looking their best when they're flirting.

Most of the duck flirting comes from the males, and it's our muscovy males that you will have seen dancing. With a lot of our ducks being Muscovy's the competition is high and our ladies can afford to be picky. Of course all of our other breeds of ducks flirt too, just some of their moves are slightly different.

The ducks really do flirt a lot. They are super happy, and while ducks you'd see on rivers and lakes commonly wait for the warmth of Spring to breed, we tend to see ducklings all year round. Life on the farm is so good that we've even had a few residents fly in and join our flock over the years. Maybe it's Caroline's duck dance attracting them in.

Until next time, keep safe.

Kara and Casey.

Thursday morning duck dance #duckdance #duckdancecc pic.twitter.com/yISffpZlJf

— Caenhill CC (@caenhillcc) November 14, 2019

Farmer Casey

It's been so busy this week supporting the farm and keeping my toddler entertained without our usual classes that I'm a bit delayed in writing this. But I didn't want to miss the chance to talk about one of the busiest days I've had at the farm in a while.

It feels really strange to say that it's busy at the farm with so many people at various stages of lockdown but life at the farm doesn't stop, our animals still need to be fed and cared for. Casey and I are doing what we can to support the farm work at this difficult time and reviewing things as we go along.

We were last helping with the farm work on Monday, and what a day it was, I was about ready for bed at dinner time. With so many baby animals, some new arrivals, fields drying up and a limited number of volunteers there's such a list of things to do.

Casey really loves farm life and is so good at getting stuck into the work, and I think he has a new favourite job at the farm. The chicken feeding might just be taking second place to feeding our new rescue rabbits and guinea pigs. I'm really not going to complain, any excuse to cuddle one of our four rescue guinea pigs is good with me.

As I mentioned, our fields are finally starting to dry out from a very wet winter where all of our animals had to be taken into the dry. But now the sun is shining and the grass is growing we really need to work on getting everyone outside, they not only enjoy it, it can decrease food costs too.

Our first animals to get out and have a good run around were Coco and Eli and Caroline and I were lucky enough to lead them out to their paddock for the first time on Monday. Considering they've been in their winter residence for five months they were really relaxed to begin with, we couldn't believe it. After a few minutes they realised they were free to run and it was worth waiting for, to see them run, jump and roll was fantastic, you really should watch the video if you get chance.

We've also got some great things to share with you coming up, so keep a look out on our social media for the story of Cuthbert, lots of baby animals and hopefully a bit of fun. If there's anything you'd like to know or see please do get in touch and don't forget we're still taking shout out requests.

Until next time.

Kara and Casey

After being shut in for 5 months, freedom for Coco and Eli #cocoandeli #freedom #rescuedonkeys @KaraRob85 @caro_painter pic.twitter.com/heejS52Y3N

— Caenhill CC (@caenhillcc) March 23, 2020

We don't often bring domestic pets into our care at CaenhillCC, part of the reason for this is funding, it's important that all of our animals are well cared for. Though I suspect another reason behind this is to stop me from taking all of the animals home. I'm a real softie when it comes to animals and until recently I've always had pet, animals are just great company really aren't they.

Despite this, Chris was contacted in the week to see if we could take in some rabbits and guinea pigs in need of a new home and I'm so happy to say that on this occasion we were able to help. Like I said, that's not always the case but we do what we can to ensure animals are looked after. So earlier this week we welcomed four rabbits (two male and two female) and four female guinea pigs to the farm.

I think it's safe to say that I was more excited about the new arrivals than the rest of the team, I honestly couldn't wait to meet them all. But we're obviously limiting farm visits for now to help the team keep safe, so I waited for the weather to dry up, our student placements to stop and some work that we could help with. There's lots to do now we don't have our students so we're utilising a small team of volunteers.

I definitely love our new arrivals and we'll be sharing them with you through the wonderful world of social media over the coming days and weeks, I really hope you enjoy watching them as much as I do. Hopefully they will inspire Caroline for a painting or two as well, so keep a look out, and I'll be taking plenty of photos too.

Lastly, thank you for your wonderful name suggestions too, it was a difficult job to choose from so many suggestions but Marshmallow, Liquorice, Cinnamon and Butterscotch were selected by our guinea pigs and the rabbits have almost finished selecting their names too.

Kara and Casey

Kara and Caroline welcome our rescue guinea pigs #rescueguineapigs #guineapigs @KaraRob85 @caro_painter pic.twitter.com/gAOIBw7dp7

— Caenhill CC (@caenhillcc) March 20, 2020

Last weekend I took the opportunity to join one of our VIP visitors at CaenhillCC while Chris took a well-deserved break from the farm. To be able to welcome people like you who follow the farm, support us and keep us motivated is so much fun, plus it's a great opportunity to share out the farm work a little more The whole farm team has been looking forward to welcoming even more visitors, especially with so many baby animals for you to meet. We just weren't expecting that not long after we launched our visits there would be so much uncertainty across the world with the spread of COVID-19.The farm doesn't stop for anything though, animals still need to be fed and we still have a some of our student placements. During one of our team meetings we began to think about how lucky we are that our days are staying relatively normal and we began to think about you, our followers at home and those of you who've been really interested in visiting.This led us to an idea (you wouldn't believe the number of ideas we get at the farm) which we knew we had to follow-up on. So we're now offering Virtual VIP Visits to the CaenhillCC farm. Yep, you can join us from the warmth and safety of your own home for a walk around our farm, we'll even let you join us to feed the lambs or open the rush hour door, how exciting is that.I really hope you like this idea and we look forward to meeting you soon whether we can welcome you in person, or virtually. Contact for more details

Kara and Casey 

Lamb feed time with Caroline, Kara, Casey and Helie #lambfeedtime #virtualvip @KaraRob85 @caro_painter pic.twitter.com/ojHLRaoXbk

— Caenhill CC (@caenhillcc) March 16, 2020

kid goats at play

Always good to have help from daughter Kara and Grandson Casey . Duties today include feeding the lambs, the kids and the chickens.
It was also good to have Paul Jupp from Meadow in my Garden to talk about our spring planting of wild flowers and sunflowers

More on twitter

Grandson Casey on lamb feeding duties with daughter Kara #grandsoncasey #farmercasey #lambfeeding @KaraRob85 pic.twitter.com/hFI4BMHYLO

— Caenhill CC (@caenhillcc) February 24, 2020

Wednesday podcast by Chris and Caroline