Maude is a miserable sight. Where once she sported a fine coat of glossy feathers, she is now threadbare and scrawny. Her irritation is palpable. She regularly shakes herself from pale combed head to barely there backside and turns herself in to a snow globe. As the swirling feathers alight on the lawn, she stalks off muttering. The rows of new quills poking painfully through her skin are visible as she moves. If there was such a thing as chicken ibuprofen, I would definitely give her a dose. Unfortunately, all I can offer her in way of relief is some poultry spice to top dress her feed and a tonic in her drinking water.
My sympathy for Maude is only matched by my despair at the state of my garden. Every day I bribe the children to pick up feathers for me. I offer biscuits and extra minutes before bedtime if they will just pick up twenty pieces formerly of Maude. They do so with eye rolls, and in the last few days have picked up nearly 400 feathers. I wish I could say it's made a difference. This morning, I spent forty five minutes gathering a carrier bag full of pillow stuffing. With pride, I surveyed my almost perfect lawn. Maude watched me from her dust bath in the border. Predictably, no more than ten minutes after I'd finished the great lawn pick up, she emerged. With a stately stroll across the grass to the Palace, she undid all my hard work. The wind picked at her bare coverings and gleefully redecorated the garden with under fluff. I decided to have wine with lunch.
Just as picking up feathers is beginning to feel like a Herculean task, I similarly can't see any end in sight to the parade of broodies passing through the nest box. Hilda was rapidly joined by Celia, and both girls need breaking as soon as possible. However, I know that they will quickly be replaced by other members of the flock. They seem to have some complicated rota system sorted out between them. I wish I'd been copied in to that memo because it would have saved me a lot of time.
A keepers tasks are never done.
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Feather-geddon
Admit it, you didn't believe me yesterday. You thought 'Oh, that Madchickenlady. She exagerrates. No way could six little chickens blanket an entire lawn'. Well, prepare to have your flabber well and truly gasted. Maude is the only one in full moult right now, but the others are all on the slide. This is my garden.
Maude, with her rapidly disappearing arse, attempting to look nonchalant.
Surveying the carnage. The entire lawn is in the same condition. And don't even get me started on the border.
A good portion of Maude's arse can be found in the coop.
And I'm guessing she sat here at some point.
Gladys is now sporting a short spikey do on her bonce, but is still amusingly bald in places.
She is not impressed. Oh, and that big white cloud in front of her?
Hilda is broody again. Sigh. I'm hoping that she'll bump out of it once her own bum falls off.
This was a pic of Maeve, but Vera has a real love of the camera. She sees me coming and flings herself at the lens.
Our beloved ASBO Chicken, looking fine.
Mabel is also moulting, but in a more sedate manner than Maude. She looks a bit moth eaten, bless 'er.
This was supposed to be a picture of Winnie. But you can't see her because Vera has once again ninja'd in to the frame. Gawd that chicken makes me laugh.
I wonder if the estate agent can airbrush feathers out of the photographs....
Monday, 18 July 2011
I Swear They Do It On Purpose
People that don't keep chickens, and have no experience of them, will tell you that poultry is somewhat lacking in the brain cell department. They will make limp jokes about headless chickens and perhaps give an anecdote about the time so-and-so's idiot bird barbecued itself. All terribly amusing. However, anyone who actually knows chickens knows that this is utter rot. Chickens are devious. Like a gold digging centrefold, they can give an air of harmless stupidity while plotting against you. Beware the gormless chicken. She means you harm.
I have been doggedly trying to impress upon the ever tolerant husband the need for us to move. Principally, this is because the human elements need room to swing the proverbial cat. But I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't hankering after more outside space. I dream of a human garden, where plants remain unmolested and the only threat to my roses is greenfly. the hens would have their own garden, complete with dust baths and plenty of bushes to snooze under. But naturally I keep these ideas to myself. The ever tolerant husband is a very easy going sort of chap, but even he might baulk at the idea of taking out a mortgage based on the suitability for the chickens. I'll have to be much more cunning than that. Plus, this would be the third time we have attempted to sell this charming domicile. So, I have an estate agent coming at the end of the week to value our house.
Just as I wrote the appointment in my diary, I heard a tapping on the kitchen door. Maude was sat on the step, trying to get my attention. There is nothing unusual in this. The girls learnt at an early stage that the kitchen is where the food lives, and that if they hover for long enough I might take pity on them. Not that they're indulged or anything. Anyway, I ignored her. She was soon joined by Mabel. They chattered disgustedly, just loud enough for me to hear. I sensed I was getting the evil eye, so opened the door to shoo them away. And that's when I saw it.
The back lawn was liberally sprinkled with feathers. Not just the odd bit of fluff, but enough for the wind to be swirling around in little feathery devils. I stared out at the chicken arse explosion with my mouth open, and a growing sense of doom. The hens stared back at me impassively, apart from Gladys who was leaping about the place shaking her ratty bum about and shedding even more of her plumage.
Every single one of the pekins has gone in to moult. Over night. Every. Single. One. You have to keep hens to truly understand the impossible maths that governs the amount of feathers that can come from one small bird. They seem to expand and spread themselves far and wide across the land. And they are impossible to clean up effectively when it's wet. And its been raining, and will continue to rain, all week. They stick to everything, get caught up in the plants and blow out of the bin every time you lift the lid. The garden, which was quite tidy yesterday, now resembles an explosion in a pillow factory.
Now, of course this could be pure coincidence. Surely my girls haven't deliberately dropped their feathers to spite me. I mean, they wouldn't do that, would they? They wouldn't try and thwart my attempts to move and relegate them to their own area? They wouldn't begrudge being denied access to the kitchen door, and therefore food, right? They wouldn't turn themselves in to welfare concern cases for the estate agent pictures, thereby making me look like a nasty, cruel owner who starves her poor birdies, surely?
Experience means that I am reserving judgement.
I have been doggedly trying to impress upon the ever tolerant husband the need for us to move. Principally, this is because the human elements need room to swing the proverbial cat. But I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't hankering after more outside space. I dream of a human garden, where plants remain unmolested and the only threat to my roses is greenfly. the hens would have their own garden, complete with dust baths and plenty of bushes to snooze under. But naturally I keep these ideas to myself. The ever tolerant husband is a very easy going sort of chap, but even he might baulk at the idea of taking out a mortgage based on the suitability for the chickens. I'll have to be much more cunning than that. Plus, this would be the third time we have attempted to sell this charming domicile. So, I have an estate agent coming at the end of the week to value our house.
Just as I wrote the appointment in my diary, I heard a tapping on the kitchen door. Maude was sat on the step, trying to get my attention. There is nothing unusual in this. The girls learnt at an early stage that the kitchen is where the food lives, and that if they hover for long enough I might take pity on them. Not that they're indulged or anything. Anyway, I ignored her. She was soon joined by Mabel. They chattered disgustedly, just loud enough for me to hear. I sensed I was getting the evil eye, so opened the door to shoo them away. And that's when I saw it.
The back lawn was liberally sprinkled with feathers. Not just the odd bit of fluff, but enough for the wind to be swirling around in little feathery devils. I stared out at the chicken arse explosion with my mouth open, and a growing sense of doom. The hens stared back at me impassively, apart from Gladys who was leaping about the place shaking her ratty bum about and shedding even more of her plumage.
Every single one of the pekins has gone in to moult. Over night. Every. Single. One. You have to keep hens to truly understand the impossible maths that governs the amount of feathers that can come from one small bird. They seem to expand and spread themselves far and wide across the land. And they are impossible to clean up effectively when it's wet. And its been raining, and will continue to rain, all week. They stick to everything, get caught up in the plants and blow out of the bin every time you lift the lid. The garden, which was quite tidy yesterday, now resembles an explosion in a pillow factory.
Now, of course this could be pure coincidence. Surely my girls haven't deliberately dropped their feathers to spite me. I mean, they wouldn't do that, would they? They wouldn't try and thwart my attempts to move and relegate them to their own area? They wouldn't begrudge being denied access to the kitchen door, and therefore food, right? They wouldn't turn themselves in to welfare concern cases for the estate agent pictures, thereby making me look like a nasty, cruel owner who starves her poor birdies, surely?
Experience means that I am reserving judgement.
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