The Great Escape

The Barrier has been in place for several weeks now. It has been pretty successful in keeping the marauding flock out of the flower bed, and I am now able to look out of the kitchen window and see some early tulips and daffodils being battered by the force 9 gales. Still, the colour is pleasing. This morning, however, I had a mystery on my hands.

A mere ten minutes after letting the girls out to free range, I spotted a soil fountain behind the rosemary bush. On closer inspection I found Maeve happily dust bathing. Carefully, I extracted her from the border and plonked her back amongst the flock on the lawn. She was most disgruntled, and I earned myself a swift peck on the heel for my insolence. I returned to the house, assuming that the determined ASBO Chicken had managed to scale the fence with a gale assisted flap.

A short while later, I discovered that Maeve was back in her favourite spot, and this time she had company. Hilda and Celia were busy attempting to dig up some late flowering bulbs. With a muttered 'bloody hens' I traipsed back out to remove them all. They didn't put up a fight and all just sat waiting to be transported. Which was odd. I mean, usually we have a bit of a flap at an eviction. But nope, they were all a picture of serene good naturedness. So naturally I was suspicious. I decided to watch them to see if I could find their access point.

After twenty minutes of watching the girls mooch about looking innocent, I decided to empty the dishwasher. This took approximately five minutes, during which time all seven pekins breached the barrier and trampled over the new poeny growth. At this point I thought darkly about wing clipping, or perhaps leg weights. It turns out, however, that I was completely on the wrong track. After turfing them all back on to the lawn, by chance I turned around just at the moment that Maude walked back through the barrier, like some cyborg, 'Terminator' chicken. Now chickens have many interesting properties, but the ability to pass through a fence via osmosis isn't one of them.

On closer inspection, I found that the netting had frayed. But it had frayed in a most interesting way. The hole was exactly at the spot that I have a heavy plant pot weighing down the fencing, in a bid to stop chook tunnelling. It is perfectly placed for a small, canny hen to jump up on to the plant pot, and then squeeze through the gap. And the gap is virtually undetectable unless you are actively looking for it (or see Maude going ghost). It's all just a bit too....convenient. I find myself contemplating just how long it would take a determined hen to saw through nylon strings with their beak. I find myself thinking of 'The Shawshank Redemption', and shuddering. Using some garden twine, I have resealed their point of entry.

Maeve watched me work with glittering, interested eyes.

Look What The Postman Bought Me today

The new incubator has arrived! As I type, it is plugged in next to me, whirring it's way to optimum hatching conditions. I am very impressed. Compared to my little Covatutto 6 manual incy that I hatched the meeps in last year, it's a technological age away. If the new incy is a supercar, the old one is a horse and cart. Where the horse is old. And possibly a bit lame.

Look at it's lovely shininess!

The super intimidating control panel.

Now, this particular outing is just to check that it all works, and also to try and decipher the instructions. I swear that NASA sent man to the moon with less programming. Still, the fact that it is so adjustable was the entire point in purchasing it. My friend is planning on a fairly straight forward large fowl hatch, but my serama experiment requires something that can be fine tuned. With any luck, and a lot of advice from the UK Serama Forum, I should be able to tweak the conditions within the incubator to give me optimum hatching results.

Roll on April.

Encouraging Relations

The mini chooks have been with us about a month now. They have made themselves perfectly at home, and both are now laying absolutely perfect, tiny eggs in their washing up bowl nest box. Every day, I open up the bottom section of their hutch and prop open the garage door so that they can come and go as they please. And every day they ignore the open door, and explore the garage instead.

Now, it must be said, that they have their reasons. The pekins periodically lay seige to the garage step, and occassionally cross the threshold in an effort to take part in some up close and personal intimidation. Being tiny has its advantages, and Betsy and Vera manage to hide themselves in plain sight. In fact, several times I have had to search for them and discovered them perched at the top of a step ladder or sitting amongst the paddling pool and lawnmower. They are experts at chicken camouflage.

If I carry them outside to force some outdoor time, they run hell for leather back to the garage door. Often before I've stood up from crouching to put them on the lawn. They are speedy little madams. The rest of the flock seems quite content with this state of affairs. They don't even have to make the effort to waddle after them in a threatening way. Simply being in sight causes panic and an attempt to break the land speed record.

I've allowed this to continue while the weather has been bad, but today the sun is shining and the back step is covered in a feathery duvet of sunbathing hens. Taking a deep breath, I put both serama on the patio, and attempted to shut them out of their garage sanctuary. I say attempted, because as soon as I got one out of the way the other was in danger of being decapitated by my closing the door. Eventually, using my welly clad foot as a roadblock, I got the door safely closed without anyone being dismembered.

The tiny twosome stood in the sunshine looking utterly lost. Like a parent encouraging a reluctant child on their first day of school, I attempted to coax them on to the lawn. Maeve raised her head from her prostrate position on the step and watched my 'chook, chook, chook'ing with a disdainful eye. As the serama gradually inched forwards and appeared in her line of sight, she muttered to the others that the newbies had emerged. One by one, flattened chickens roused themselves to cast a gleeful eye in the serama's direction. However, the chances for sunbathing have been few and far between, and no-one could muster the enthusiasm to actually unpeel themselves from the warm patio slabs.

Taking this as a good sign, I've left them to it.