Tuesday 28 December 2010

Slippery When Wet

The girls are happier now it's getting warmer, Omelette seems much more herself and the girls are out in the garden now they don't have to wade through 6 inches of snow. They have been enjoying the fact that we're off work as they get to run around in the garden all day.

They are getting so used to their morning porridge that this morning they were waiting outside the patio doors for the gorgeous one to put it out for them, but then they couldn't eat it as it was too hot for them! They circled it a few times before tentatively pecking at it. Now, it's much cooler and Mabel and Omelette are devouring it whilst their mate Robin scoffs their crumb from the decking.

The rain came and washed away lots of the ice, which the chickens are also liking as it's slippery stuff and the other day I did see one of them slip on the ice whilst chasing me up the garden which is a pretty amusing sight I can tell you!

Monday 20 December 2010

Strange




Okay, so we've had one or two weird shaped eggs right? This one takes all prizes. Hands down. No question. Just bizarre! We cracked it open and it seemed to be okay (not much white in it at all but a lovely yellow yolk), but it had an extra bit of shell on it and a hole in the top.

Who would lay an egg like this?

I Swear

The snow has come down with a vengeance and is full leg deep if you're a chicken, I guess it's the equivalent of being thigh high for us humans. The girls have been walking round the garden in it but have been holding up their legs (which are covered in snow) and shivering, Ma, get knitting those leg warmers! Needless to say, they don't like it much and have pretty much been staying in and around their house (except for Omelette who has been trudging round the garden looking thoroughly hacked off!).

On Saturday the gorgeous one went up to their house to clean them out/fetch eggs/etc and as he walked up to their house he called out to them "hello girls" now he is convinced that in return one of the girls swore at him! Maybe he's losing it a bit...

Yoko is still worrying me a bit, she doesn't seem to be getting herself in the house at bedtime and ends up under the house instead, we keep having to put her in the house before closing it up for the night which isn't good if we're out and don't get back until they should have been in bed for ages. She does look rather sorry for herself at the minute too. The gorgeous one gave her a cuddle over the weekend because she was cold and I did this morning too, although I was pretty cold myself! Brrr! One good thing is that her limp seems to have gone so perhaps she just twisted it or something.

Their friend the robin has been back to see them over the weekend and has been hanging out with them in their house and helping them eat their crumb, I wonder if that's good for Robins too? I think the Robin knows that if the big birds (the chickens) are not worried, then it's safe to eat and sit around. I think it is incredibly sweet that they have another little friend and I wonder whether it's the same one that was here before?

Friday 17 December 2010

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow


It started snowing, Omelette is very happy as she's found something new and interesting to eat...

Frozen


We are slowly becoming a 3-egg-a-day family, although 1 of these 3 eggs a day is being pecked in and eaten, if I find out who it is, they're going in the pot!!! Okay, that's not true, a. because I could never do that to one of our girls and b. because you can't eat layers apparently.

Omelette laid the most bizarre egg the other day, completely misshapen and a weird colour. I think they were in the eggs that we gave to the gorgeous one's Ma last night but I'm not sure it will be worth eating! I had hoped to take a picture of it to show you all but when I looked this morning it was gone, I was too late.

The girls are not enjoying the cold on their feet, Yoko especially, although she has a little bit of a limp at the moment so I need to keep an eye on her. I let them out on Tuesday as I was working from home and she was limping quite badly on it and although she's still limping it's not quite so bad as Tuesday. Ma and I were talking this morning about knitting them some socks, but thinking about it, I think they would get ruined with their scratching around so maybe we should make them leg warmers instead? They could pretend they were the kids from Fame!

Yoko has become the scruffy one now. It seems that Omelette has had a complete regeneration going on over the last few weeks and although she's not quite as pretty as Mabel, she's grown all new feathers on her tail and her wings and looks almost like a normal chicken (I did say almost and even if she looks like a normal chicken, we all know that she really isn't normal).

I have a picture of them in the snow from a couple of weeks ago which I will add onto this post, they really didn't know what to make of that, they'd never seen anything like it before! As we are expecting heavy snow this weekend, there'll be more pics to come I'm sure.