A New Era

Just twenty four hours after ordering it, the new chicken netting arrived. A new era of garden ownership had dawned. As I danced around the kitchen with glee, the chooks watched me from the garden in a huddle.

It took about twenty minutes to erect, and the whole time the girls watched me with curiosity. I nearly stood on Maeve and Mini several times, as they pecked experimentally at the netting poles. The bigger girls kept their distance, and plotted.

Once it was up, I put the girls on their side of the garden. They scratched about a bit, pecked the netting, and then pretty much ignored it. I sat on the bench watching them, and dreamed of having flower borders and being able to walk across the lawn bare foot without squelching in a curry poo. My day dreaming took me into a very happy place, and it was some time before I realised that Maude was sat at my feet, looking up at me.

I couldn't believe it. Ten minutes! That's all the time it took for my resident escape artist to breach the new, metre high barrier. Eyeing her sternly, I put her back over into the Convent's grounds. She clucked happily to the other hens, no doubt imparting her secret. At this point I realised that I hadn't got a chicken that could walk through things, terminator style. I'd forgotten to block off the greenhouse. With that done, the girls were fully enclosed. They went to bed happily, and so did I.

This morning, I let them out into their new exercise yard without any concerns about escapism. You can probably guess what happened next. I heard an almighty racket, and dashed out into the garden to find Maude stood in the middle of the lawn. She ruffled her feathers at me, bokked a bit, and then watched me to see what I would do. I unceremoniously dumped her back over the new chicken netting. She looked at me pityingly.

Twenty minutes later, she had taught Mini and Belinda to cross over, too. She's an evil genius chicken.

Someone has clearly forgotten to inform Maude that pekins can't fly.

At Her Majesty's Pleasure

We've established that my attempt at netting in the hens was rubbish. The idea was good though, so this weekend hubby and I were on a mission. A quick trip to the local DIY place later, the ever tolerant husband got on with building a proper barrier. Using short wooden stakes and some pvc netting, he managed to neatly cordon off the garden into two distinct sections; the convent and grounds, and the human garden. Brilliant.



I methodically sought out small fluffy chickens and popped them into their new area. At first, they didn't notice the new improved fence and assumed that I was just moving them around for fun. There were no complaints, just resigned clucking as I plonked them down in chicken prison. The peace didn't last long, however.



Maude was the first to notice that the new fence wasn't so easily breached as the 'cobwebs on sticks' attempt I'd made. She bokked to the others in a 'hang on, girls, I'm not liking this!' manner. Mabel waddled over, giving the netting an experimental peck. Finding the plastic unyielding, she took up a war cry. Within minutes, five pissed off hens were speedily trotting along the whole length of the barrier, looking for an out. Back and forth they went, looking very much like they should have had little tin cups in their beaks to clang along the bars of their new prison. Oh, the guilt.



Maeve was cheeping on the lawn, in the priviliged position of being allowed on the human side of the fence. This isn't favouratism, more that the others might eat her. This way she can get on with growing big enough to defend herself when the inevitable integration duff up occurs. Didn't stop her gloating, though.



Deciding that my presence was probably agitating them more, I took the cowards way out and went to have a calming cup of tea. When I next looked out, Mabel was by the back door, a glint of triumph in her eye. The absolutely tiny gap between fence and coop had proved big enough for her to squeeze her matronly bum through. We know that this was what she must have done, because we soon saw Doris do the same thing. Hubby looked at this, and then blocked the gap with a tall plant pot.



As we stood there, discussing the flaws in our security system, Maude took a running, flapping jump and joined her best pal on the other side of the fence. A problem that is not so easy to fix. However, only Maude and Mini seem capable of flying to any height, so we're hopeful that they'll get bored of being away from their chicken chums. Maybe.



Their complete disgust that the barrier was still in place when I let them out this morning was audible. Today, it was Mini that popped over for a visit. It's really more of an open prison.

The Great Escape

Yesterday was glorious here, blue skies and bright sunshine. The kind of weather that demands that you go outside to enjoy it. Also the kind of weather which shows up just how much your flower borders are suffering because of chickenny attention. Hmm. I'm a keen gardener, so the sight of trampled and nibbled favourite plants nearly sent me over the edge. The girls sat there looking at me, heads on one side, as I bemoaned the state of my tulips and the lack of foliage on my lupins. Once I'd finished this pointless telling off, they wandered off to drop manure on the lawn and to eat something else I was fond of. Enough is enough.

Determined not to spend a fortune on netting, I decided to improvise and aquired some garden netting and some bamboo canes. I marked off the area that I was happy for them to munch/poo in/dig up, and set about erecting my DIY fence. The hens watched with interest, occassionally coming over to cluck conversationally and peck at the netting. I struggled with getting the netting to stay up, and I struggled even more in getting the canes into the hard clay soil. Eventually, it was done.

I stood back to admire my handiwork, certain that now I could have some flowers in my garden. The girls seemed to realise that something was up at this point, and decided to leg it into the garage. Retrieving them, I popped them over the netting and watched their confusion at this new obstacle. After standing around a bit and complaining, they got bored and went to scratch/poo/munch. Ha!, I thought, Me 1, Chickens 0. Happily, I skipped inside to eat my lunch.

I stood in the kitchen filling the kettle, and suddenly realised that all five hens were back on the lawn. Bugger. I strode out, looking for the breach. Puzzled, I examined the intact barrier. The chooks cackled behind me, obviously pleased with themselves. We went through this routine a couple of times before I realised the crafty cows were legging it behind the greenhouse and escaping down the side. Once I worked this out, I blocked off their escape route with some timber. All the while Maeve was charging around the greenhouse cheeping her head off at all the excitement. I'm pretty sure she was egging them on.

Now that I had a foolproof pen, I plonked them all back inside it and watched. They immediately tried the greenhouse route, and complained loudly when they found it blocked. They wandered back around to the fence, Maude leading the way. There then followed what can only be called a chicken conference as they discussed this new problem. A lot of clucking and bokking later, Maude took a run up and flew over the netting. Pretty much simultaneously, Doris limboed under a section that I couldn't get pegged down.

Back to the drawing board.