Merry Christmas Everyone

Hey there all. The girls and I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

They are doing very, very well and are enjoying some time out in the garden today. I have to say that the two of them look so very healthy and happy recently. Mabel has developed some wonderful new paler colored feathers and Yoko has become a beautiful chicken with a full coat of feathers and they both seem extremely content as we approach their second Christmas with us.

More blogging to come in the new year, but for now a couple of pictures taken today...

Missing you

Hey there chicken fans

Once again I am the roving reporter, coming to you live from Washngton DC (unless of course you're reading this when I've already left)!

A quick update on our girls and how they are doing since Oms has gone and, well, they're doing just great actually. I hate to be disrespectful to our dearly departed Oms, but they seem to be flourishing, Yoko especially. She has grown proper feathers on her wings for the first time, which makes me think that perhaps the other two were ganging up on her (mean girls).

Mabel and Yoko were out in the garden on Friday as I worked from home and seemed to enjoy the time out, they were doing a little synchronized dance at one point which did make me laugh, it was 3 steps to the right, 3 steps to the left, repeat. Then they started to play follow the leader but Yoko went between the fence and the tree so Mabel ran round it to be out at the same point. I will try and get some updated pictures on here when I get back so you can see just how well they are doing.

The loss of Oms has made me and the gorgeous one more paranoid about the health of the other two, as soon as one of them looks like they might be drooping their tail or standing funny, we're asking each other if they look alright, of course they are alright, they are just fine.

Since you've been gone

We must have the nicest vet ever.

I have been away this week (again) in Barcelona and I arrived home last night to find a card from the vet with condolences on the loss of Omelette and saying that we did the right thing and is we needed anything we could contact him. How sweet is that?!? I was a little embarrassed at how upset I was actually, so this has made me not feel quite so bad about that.

The two remaining girls are doing well. The gorgeous one said this morning that he thinks that Yoko is getting bigger and Mabel has been having some feather regrowth, the garden has been covered in feathers lately! They don't seem to have been affected too much by not having Omelette around anymore if anything I think they are quite enjoying not having to share a nesting box anymore and have very quickly settled into having one each. Maybe that will change when the weather really turns and they may find it nicer to snuggle up together again.

The gorgeous one gave them a good clean out this morning as we are off on holiday tomorrow and have some friends coming to look after the house/cat/chickens so they are either house-sitters, cat-sitters, or chicken-sitters (say that very carefully), you decide...

Sleep Well Tonight

Sad new chicken fans, yesterday I had to take Omelette to the vets and I'm afraid I came home without her.

She just went downhill over the last couple of weeks though the gorgeous one and I were hoping she would get over it as she was still eating and drinking and although not running about, she was still able to walk around in their run.

I worked from home yesterday and she just stood there in the garden mostly and was making this funny jerky movement so I called the gorgeous one and told him I thought we should bite the bullet and take her to the vet. Now, unfortunately the only appointment that the gorgeous one could get was at 6pm and he couldn't get home in time to take her, so it was down to me. My very kindly neighbor lent me a cage to put her in and we drove to the vets. The vet was brilliant, he has ex bat chickens himself and understood how attached we were to her and the other girls. He also said that we had been lucky to have had her for so long as he started to lose his first brood after just 4 months.

Anyway, he checked her over, she was incredibly thin (I felt her ribcage and she was just bones) but she also had a rather scary feeling lump in her abdomen, which he thought was probably a tumor. She was not moving much whilst she was being examined and was allowing us to hold her and stroke her (that tells you how sick she must have been as she would not have let you touch her before) so it was nice for me to get that time with her. He then delivered the verdict. There was nothing he could do. I knew it was coming, the gorgeous one and I had prepared ourselves for the worst but it was still horrible to hear and horrible for me to have to say goodbye and walk out without her.

So whilst we are so happy to have been able to give the gift of a real life and some free range time to our crazy chicken Omelette, we will miss her and the laughs she brought. Rest easy girl x

Things ain't what they used to be

So the egg drought is well and truly here, no more eggs since the celebration one and there's not an egg in the house. Part of me thinks I'll give up eating eggs if I can't have them laid by our girls...

Omelette is a bit of a worry (when has she not been?) she's pretty lethargic and although eating and drinking, mostly just standing there, the way she stands reminds me of a staunch Winston Churchill so you have to imagine this big fat Churchill chicken with her head pulled in just standing there watching, it's a bit unnerving sometimes too. Her tail is droopy too, having looked online at various reasons for this (rat bite fever, broodiness, eggs stuck in the vent), I don't think any of these apply to her, she is such a worry. The gorgeous one and I think she's never quite got over being a battery hen, perhaps she was a bit too mentally scarred.

I was also worried about Mabel earlier too, she had "taken to her bed" and Yoko and Omelette were in the run despite the run being open. It is pretty windy today and the trees are making a bit of noise so maybe they don't like that too much, although having said that, they are all out now having some food and scratching around. Hopefully the sunshine will stay for the rest of the day so they can get a good stretch of their legs (and wings).

Love's Great Adventure

So, I was just about to write a very disparaging blog about the girls and how they had no right to call themselves chickens anymore as they stopped laying eggs. The gorgeous one commented a few days ago about how we might have to actually BUY eggs, now surely that's like having a dog and barking yourself right?

Well, anyway I came home last night from a little celebratory drink with the northern bird (thanks hun, lovely food, bubbly and company) and the gorgeous one told me (you might want to sit down) that we'd had an egg!! I know, amazing. I'm hoping it'll be like waiting for a bus and that we'll get a flurry of eggs now, yes, I do realise that's a bit optimistic but I am a glass half full kind of girl.

Maybe it's a gift to celebrate that the gorgeous one asked me to be Mrs Gorgeous One...

Here without you

It seems that when we're away the girls think they can stop laying altogether, hardly any eggs were laid when we were at the wedding and on hols in New York. We think that they don't like to be kept in all the time and will only lay when they have good access to their run and are free to run about. They had free run all over the weekend and then yesterday morning and lo and behold we had a broken egg yesterday and a whole one today!