The cold snap lingers here in the midlands. With the temperature barely creeping above freezing during the day, I'm not seeing a lot of my girls. Most of the time they are huddled together in the coop, apart from Margot who tends to lay her egg and then do victory laps around the garden. I have gone back to shutting the pop hole at night in a bid to trap some heat. This means that as soon as I get up, I have to head out into the blizzardy wilderness to let the girls get to their breakfast. Certainly wakes you up.
Several times a day I have to defrost the drinker. Not that the chooks are drinking much in these temperatures. I also have to chip their pellets free from the feeder. It's only a matter of time before I have to go and peel frozen talons from perches at this rate. On the plus side, frozen poo is much easier to clean up.
I have been watching Mini now for months, and decided to interfere a bit more today. Clamping the filthy hen under my arm, I examined her bulging eye. The cyst has well and truly taken hold now, and after I prodded and poked at it a bit, Mini screeched at me and pooed down my coat. I think her meaning was clear. I had some notion that if I cleaned her eye up a bit she'd be more comfortable. Obviously, I was very much mistaken. Released from armpit captivity, she sauntered off, glaring at me over her shoulder with her waft eye. Then it occurred to me. She was not looking at me out of her bad eye at all, she was using her good eye to see where she was going.
I am now the proud owner of a cyclops chicken.
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