The Damp Settles In

Autumn has well and truly arrived here in the midlands. Temperatures have plummeted, and the house once again resembles an industrial laundrette. The damp air is doing interesting things to my hair, but more amusingly, it's doing interesting things to Gladys.

Poor Gladys. Being frizzled apparently comes at a price. While all the other hens look sleeker now that their feathers are damp, Gladys has puffed up. She now resembles a pom pom with legs. Her neck feathers have curled so far over her head that she has to strain her neck out to see where she's going. She looks strangely alien as she wombles across the lawn looking for bugs. If the rain was anything other than this barely there drizzle, she wouldn't have this problem. Even frizzles de-frizzle when very wet. However, this current dampness just adds to the curl. She looks magnificent, but also embarassed.

She has taken to perching in the Palace grounds, and determinedly preening. With painstaking attention to detail, she attempts to flatten out the worst offenders. I think this serves to act like an open bladed scissors on ribbon, and just curls her feathers more extravagantly. Eventually, she sits and sulks. With her head tucked in, it can be tricky to work out which end is which.

The other girls are being suitably sympathetic. Maude has taken to following the follicly challenged youngster about. Not to chase or peck her, but seemingly purely because she can't believe her crazy hairstyle. If chickens could laugh, Gladys would hear nothing else.

I think she's gorgeous.

All Is Well

Doris has gone in to moult in the last few days. Copious amounts of silvery feathers are blowing about the garden making the place look untidy. The moulting hen seems quite embarassed about the whole situation and is lurking in the shrubbery, leaving soft piles of fluff every time she moves. The rest of the flock are being generously decorated, and Purdy spent a good ten minutes yesterday trying to remove one of Doris's knicker feathers from her comb. The Palace's grounds are a swirling mass of ex-Doris. I am secretly hoping for gale force winds just to tidy the place up a bit.

Maeve has been busy in the garden this week. She finally managed to dig up one of my recently planted daffodil bulbs. Not content with this minor act of vandalism, she dragged it over to the back step and left it there while I was eating a sandwich. The Dark One eyeballed me through the patio door, just to make sure that we understood each other. Attempting to plant things in her dust bath was not going to end well. With a resigned sigh, I replanted the bulb in a less sunny spot. She is training me well.

Gladys and Hilda are still running the flock gauntlet with aplomb. Celia has taken to giving them a hard time during her infrequent forays from the nest. They out run her easily, and follow impressive figure or eight routes around the other girls before coming back together to compare notes. Celia is benefitting from the exercise, but getting increasingly psychotic. Any day now she will explode through indignation.

In other news, it's possible that two more pretty ladies will be joining them by Christmas. Details to follow....

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.