Thursday 29 July 2010

Hold me in your arms

Hey there chicken fans! So sorry for the delay in blogging but I have been away on business and not seen the girls hardly at all!

I had Monday off and was home in the afternoon so I let the girls out in the garden and anyone would have thought that it was their first chance of freedom! Now they have had a taste of it, they always want to be outside! On Tuesday, the gorgeous one worked from home and so they had all day in the garden, the lucky things! I did see a sneaky red-head in next doors garden(no, not Chris Evans), but little Charlie fox was heading in the opposite direction. I wondered in fact whether urban foxes would know what chickens were? Is it instinctive? How does a fox know the difference between a chicken and a dog? That's not a joke by the way. I wonder how intelligent a fox is. I know they're supposed to be sly and cunning but how clever are they? Are they cleverer than chickens or do they just overpower them with their size?

Whilst watching Jimmy Doherty's programme on chickens the other week (yes, chicken books, then chicken programmes), which was excellent by the way and had a big thing about rescue hens (which of course our girls are)it showed how clever chickens are at alerting each other and avoiding danger from predators and how they knew the difference between a real fox and a stuffed one! Some students even trained some of them to recognise where food was behind some paper windows, which just shows you how clever the chickens are - they got students to do something rather than drink and spend the tax payers money in the SU Bar!

Our girls are looking so well now. Mabel has absolutely beautiful feathers now, round tipped (which shows how healthy a chicken is according to the gorgeous one) and lush. Her fluffy white legs have turned brown with the new feathers and she doesn't have a scrawny neck any more. Mabel is also okay to pick up and has been having a few cuddles with the gorgeous one (but don't tell him I told you right?).

Yoko has also grown all new feathers, although she's the easiest to tell from the others as she's still a good few shades lighter brown than the other two, she will also let you stroke her and is my garden shadow. Yesterday she did an impression of Omelette running up the garden with her wings out which was very funny! She's also okay for a cuddle, should you fancy one!

Omelette has grown new feathers but her wings are still a bit sparse, I guess those will improve with time. She's still the comedy chicken and keeps trying to get into small gaps, I guess she'll never learn! She's also very vocal and desperately wants into the house, trying to get past the barrier that we put up so we can have the patio door open but keep the girls in the garden and if you leave the kitchen door open she makes a bee line for it!

One of my chicken followers has arranged for some meal worms for the girls (thanks so much) which I'm sure will go down a treat, they go frantic for them! I think our follower should come and give them to the girls themselves, the girls don't mind visitors you know, perhaps I could charge and be like a petting zoo????

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