After last weeks burning temperatures, the British weather has done an about turn. It's raining. A lot. The garden is appreciating the wet, and the plants are replenishing their scorched leaves. The chooks, however, are not so impressed.
Feather footed birds tend to hate the wet. Their long foot feathers get matted together making getting around difficult. As a result, I have a disgruntled flock. Mabel and Maude, being a bit bigger, are able to jump from one place of relative dryness to another, but the others have to plow through the soggy grass which is by now at breast height. They bok with with ill humour, stopping every few feet to preen their feet in an effort to stop them getting knotted together. Looking miserable, they make only brief forays into the run for food and water. The rest of the time, they huddle in the coop.
Mini and Belinda are both broody, so are welded to the nest. Maeve is in a bit of a dilemma. She likes to keep outside of pecking distance from the others, but is finding it hard to do her road runner impression out in the open. As a result, she's spending a lot of her time perched in the coop, ready to flee if any of the others jump up next to her. My littlest hen is in a state of high alert, and is being quite pecky. To try and remind her that I'm a friend, and not a psychotic flock mate, I'm hand feeding her some corn while stroking her back. She is tolerating me, just. She did however karate kick my mother when she visited last week. Maeve may be the recipient of the first chicken ASBO.
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