"They wander off burping like drunks exiting a pub"

Only a few weeks ago I was struggling to get them to finish their milk. Coaxing them to suckle on the bottle. Persuading them that they needed to drink up to grow.

No longer. They push and shove, bleat so loudly that I can hear them inside the farmhouse from the paddock, guzzle their milk down in seconds, complain bitterly that there is not more.

Each of them sport tummies that are as tight as drums. They wander off burping like drunks exiting a pub when the three of them are finally convinced that there is no more until the next feed.

Recently I found some pictures of them soon after birth. Their ribs were clearly defined, necks skinny, legs like twigs. Now they are solid and well padded. Perhaps it is time to tell them to consider a diet for the next few months.

Down the fields the lambs with their mums are all doing well and the last shearling to lamb has just given birth to twins. End of lambing for this year. We gave up going out after midnight to check on the shearlings when we were down to just three to lamb. Fortunately, all of them have lambed very conveniently and considerately in the day time.

My clutches of chicks are now very confident around the yard and garden. Once let out of the coops in the morning, they scatter immediately to raid the cattle troughs or scrat in among any fallen corn.

Yesterday we had a big wagon in the yard to take 20 tonnes of wheat and there are always rich pickings for poultry in the corn auger and around the tipping area once the lorry has departed.

It is funny, though, to see the hens calling frantically to their wayward chicks as they scurry off in different directions. They are frantic to try and keep track of the animated little bundles of feathers, who, like naughty teenagers, are determined to test out just how far they can stretch parental authority.

Unfortunately, one of the hens was run over by a car on the lane, leaving her chicks orphans. No worries. The chicks have tucked themselves under another hen at night and, as they have the same colour feathers as her offspring, she has accepted them without demur, or more importantly, without any vicious jabs of her beak.

But I have decided enough is enough with chicks this year. That means a constant battle to keep throwing broody hens off nests of eggs that have been laid in the day, and that I want for the kitchen.

Each night I pick the hens up and take them back to the hen hut. Each morning after I have let them out, the same hens scuttle off to the various nest sites under the barn and plonk themselves on any eggs that have already been laid. Game on.