The Rain It Raineth Every Day

We are in soggy, damp winter hell. In between bouts of rain, the fog descends just to ensure that everything stays dank and miserable. Several times on the way out to deal with the birds I have gone skidding across the patio on the slipperiest substance known to man: soggy chicken excrement. Lovely. I am beginning to think that the placement of these mini turds is deliberate. Maeve can often be seen loitering around the back step looking suspicious.

Poor ASBO Chicken is still in moult and it is beginning to get her down. Even her favourite pastimes of chasing underlings and ambushing superiors have lost their appeal. So desperately itchy is she that she will tolerate me rubbing her quill-spiky neck without attempting a fingerectomy. Her foot feathers have grown in beautifully, but the head, neck and hackle feathers are taking their time. Hopefully she will be back to her evilly gorgeous, bouffanted, black self by Christmas.

Celia is on day three of lock out. She seems to be coming around and taking more notice of the others, so my hopes are high that this approach will work. The dodgy-eyed Doris seems much better at this point and I am hoping that my trips to the vet are now over for this year. I think every keeper has a run of bad health in the flock, but after last years months of misery I rather feel that I've earned a few hassle free seasons. Of course, even typing this is tempting fate so I'm both touching wood and crossing fingers.

The Palace will soon have a bespoke sign courtesy of a very talented Twitter pal. Once it arrives and is in place expect a photo. It is everything I had hoped for and more, and even has the mighty Mille's featured. You will be impressed, I guarantee it.

Now I just have to source the perfect solar fairy lights and some bunting.

Autumn Broodies Are Bonkers

Purdy has decided to join Celia in her broody psychosis. I have decided to blame this completely ridiculous (not to mention totally unsuitable) state of affairs on the fact that these two ladies are not yet a year old. They are obviously in the grip of adolescent, hormone induced unreasonableness. A more seasoned hen wouldn't dream of bothering with all this pallaver in October.

Daily, I turf them out of the nest box and rescue any eggs (Out of eight chickens, I now have one laying girl. ASBO Chicken is still going strong and keeping me in cake). Purdy leaps up, shrieks her head off and runs laps around the garden. She is generally persued by the mighty Mille's, who for some reason favour the galloping Purdy with their sexual favors. She is not a particularly willing participant.

Celia remains flattened on the lawn, like an elaborate cow pat. I nudge her with my foot, and recieve growls for my troubles. I have learnt that approaching her with my hands is painful and fruitless. Gradually, I shove the spaced out chicken across the grass. Maeve usually wanders over at this point to deliver a few sharp pecks to Celia's head. Even this rough treatment merely earns her a hiss. I shoo Maeve away, and stick my welly under the reluctant silver partridge in an attempt to get her up on her feet. Eventually, she stands like someone awakening from a deep sleep. She staggers a short distance, and usually defecates in a truly spectacular fashion.

Broody droppings are always vile, but Celia has the ability to create something so mind bogglingly enormous and fetid that it has to be seen to be believed. The first time I came across one of these ginormo-poo's I thought it must have been left by a fox and became quite alarmed. She stands next to her creation, looking at me as if to say 'See? Are you happy now?!'.

I can only imagine that if I didn't force her from the nest occassionally, she might actually explode.

Ascending To The Palace

The new chicks on the block, Gladys and Hilda, have been with us three weeks now. It was always my aim to have an integrated flock by the time that the weather turned, but the speed at which the new girls have been accepted is astounding. The two factions eye each other warily, but the usual violence is conspicuous in it's absence.

I went out to shut the hens up for the night at dusk yesterday, and had a mild panic. Hilda and Gladys were not cosied up in the garage. I hunted around the garden by torchlight, looking for a glimpse of Hilda's rubbish camouflage. Finding nothing, I opened the coop. Celia is still nest bound, and growled at me grumpily. The other five ladies were arranged about the perches in that very exact way which relates to the pecking order. And right in the back, huddled in the corner, were the two newbies.

I closed the coop door, and retrieved my jaw from the top of my wellies. My 14 week old baby pekins had voluntarily gone to bed with the big girls. I couldn't quite work out whether this was a stroke of awe inspiring courage, or extreme stupidity. It was entirely possible that Maeve would wake up bright and early and eat them both for breakfast, barely stopping to cough up a feather. Not to mention how the mighty Mille's might respond to these tresspassing young upstarts. Moulting makes a girl have cowbag tendencies.

As I stood there dithering, the ever tolerant husband stuck his head out of the back door and told me to stop standing in the garden with a torch like a loon and come and drink my wine. This seemed like a brilliant idea, so I locked up the Palace and trudged back to the house.

Five minutes later, I trudged back out, opened the pop hole and made sure that there was another feeder and drinker in the run. I then checked that no one was using Gladys as a pillow and poked maeve a bit until she hissed at me, just to make sure she wasn't ill. Crossing my fingers that all homicidal tendencies would stay well hidden, I left them to it.

This morning, the girls got themselves up for breakfast. When I came downstairs, the five non-broody ladies had finished their breakfast and were lounging about the run. Taking a deep breath, I opened the coop. Celia was still pancaked on her imaginary eggs, and mumbled a bit at being disturbed. The newbies were sat on the perches, unharmed. I checked the coop for stary feathers that should still be attached to young bums, but found none. No feathers, no blood and apparently no big deal.

They are not a fully integrated flock yet, but it's very close.

Autumn Falls

Now that a good week has gone by, we are all settling down with our new flock. Gladys and Hilda have been out in a fenced off pen and getting their first taste of the great outdoors. The girls have shown minimum interest in the newcomers, with only Purdy really trying to stake her claim in the existing pecking order. Understandably, as bottom hen, she is not keen on any newbies rising above her in the chain of command. She can be seen strutting around the perimeter of the enclosure, puffing her chest out and grumbling. For the most part, Gladys and Hilda ignore her.

Maeve watched from a distance for the first day, and on the second sauntered over to flex her ASBO muscles. She was intrigued by Gladys, the anti-ASBO, with her curling feathers. Sensibly, Gladys refused to make eye contact and kept her head down. When her attention shifted to Hilda, however, there was an interesting development. Hilda was sat comfortably against the netting, which to be honest was a schoolboy error. Maeve glided up behind her, and gave an experimental peck. This was the equivalent of the school bully tapping you politely on the shoulder before punching you in the face. Hilda surprised us both, however, by reacting instantly and aggressively. Hackle feathers up, she rounded on Maeve and pecked back. Both birds jumped apart and regarded each other solemnly. After several moments, Maeve sauntered away. Interesting. Hilda went back to sunbathing, seemingly untroubled.

Mabel, our illustrious leader, is in full moult. The garden resembles an explosion in a pillow factory. Not to be out done, when I opened the coop this morning I found Maude sitting on a pile of her own rapidly dropped fluff. Where the Mille's lead the way, the others will certainly follow. I predict that I will spend most of the autumn picking up handfuls of feathers in an attempt to stop the ever tolerant husband wailing in dispair.

And that was the summer.

The Palace Is On The Move

The chooks are now happily settled in to their new abode. They adore the run perches, and scratching about in the aubiose. However, they are less enamoured of the sleeping area. The coop is huge compared to what they're used to, and very, very dark. When they need to lay, they timidly scuttle in to the nearest nest box from the pop hole, expel the egg and then run hell for leather back outside. Only the newly broody (again) Kiki shows any willing to spend time in the spacious indoors. At night, Margot goes in to join her flockmate, but the others snuggle up on an outside perch.

So, at dusk, I trek out to the Palace, and stuff birds in to the pop hole. One by one, I shove them inside. As they're in their sleepy trance state at this point, they don't happily wander over to the indoor perches. They stay plonked just inside the door. As subsequent birds are deposited, the preceeding hen is shunted across the coop floor. What you end up with, is a hypnotised conga line of chickens. I then turn a torch on inside the house, which wakes them up a bit. The sensible Mille's shake themselves and climb aboard the perch block. Doris slowly comes round and joins them. Maeve's first instinct on waking up is to duff up Celia and Purdy, who leg it in to the furthest nest box. Once all of this has calmed down, I turn off the torch and lock them in. I'm really hoping that they get over this fear of the great indoors quite rapidly.

The Palace was always destined to stand on the new patio. However, after just a few days it's become apparent that it needs to move. Much as I love hens, they are not tidy creatures. Within minutes of being released, they tend to kick bedding out of the door and poo a lot. The ever tolerant husband made an executive decision, and began digging out the border. I frantically removed plants before they fell foul of his spade and hurried to replant them in a safer place. The girls watched all of this activity from their lofty vantage point, occassionally shrieking encouragement. The ever tolerant husband just loves being serenaded.

By early evening, he had managed to lay four enormous paving slabs, and called it a day. As soon as he went inside to clean up, I released the chooks. With great joy, they ran/flapped over to the newly excavated ground and happily ate their own body weight in bugs. Unfortunately, in doing so, they managed to scratch earth everywhere and half bury the painstakingly layed slabs. Ahem. I hurriedly excavated the site with my foot.

The Convent was sold yesterday, for the amazing price of £122. The buyer was so keen, he actually drove an hour along the motorway to collect it as soon as the auction finished. I watched it go with a mixture of relief (Yay! My garden back!) and sadness. After all, it was the coop that began my chicken keeping journey.

I wish its new owners well as they begin theirs.