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?

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.

Breakfast at Tiffanys

We're a bit worried that the girls will get cold, so we've done the whole Vaseline on the combs and wattles to prevent frost bite as the weather is definitely turning arctic out there and we wouldn't want them to get sick now would we? The only problem is that we're not sure how often you have to do it, they were very good though and the gorgeous one held them and I smeared it all over them. Their combs were very cold too!

The gorgeous one has also upped their straw allowance considerably and lined the perching(ha!) area with extra straw as one of them tends to end up in there to sleep. He doesn't put the perches in there any more as the chicken that ended up sleeping in that area just sat between them anyway.

I've also posted a picture of them enjoying their latest treat - porridge! We weren't sure whether they would like it but as you can see, it's gone down a treat! Yoko was less keen on trying it but Omelette and Mabel have very much enjoyed filling themselves up with the delicious warm oaty goodness. I'm wondering whether they'll get that glow round them from those adverts that used to be on telly years ago (although we didn't use that particular brand of porringe).

I was talking yesterday with a colleague of mine (Daniel this is the bit about you) about whether we could get people knitting little jumpers for them, but then I thought it might be a little difficult to make sleeves so they'd have to be tank tops! In my head I now have a little picture of them wearing tank tops, knitted, stripey tank tops. Go on, close your eyes and think about it, funny huh? we could have a whole line of chicken clothes, designer chicken wear for the smart chicken about town. I'm not sure how much our girls would let you put clothes on them though - especially Omelette, who runs a mile if you even go to touch her!

That's not my name

Ive been working from home this week and the girls are LOVING it. They get to be out all day, putting themselves to bed at about 4.30pm when it starts getting dark. The gorgeous one is also loving it as there's not a lot of poo in their run if they are out all day, that's probably because it's all over my decking! Honestly, it is caked in it.

Mabel is being a bit of a bully at the moment, I just had to shout at her through the patio doors. Omelette was laying in the sunshine quite peacefully and quietly (for a change) and Mabel comes over starts scratching at the floor where Omelette is laying and then pecked her! I shouted "Mabel!" and she walked away, either she knows her name, she knows she was not being very nice or the loud noise made her walk away. I don't really mind which (although I would love her to know her name) because it made her stop pecking Omelette.

Here in my room

The gorgeous one has taken to putting the girls food an water on the edge of the decking lately. I think it's because the garden is so full of leaves, the feeder and waterer (?) don't stand upright and the girls have a tendency to knock them over! More than once we've found the top of the feeder off and food all over the grass, which they then just scratch into the dirt and walk away. Well anyway, the point of me telling you this is because I just saw Mabel making a claim for the comedy chicken award! Her and Omelette were walking around the feeder (for some reason they walk round the feeder in circles) and Mabel didn't realise quite how close to the edge of the decking it was and she slipped off the edge onto the grass. She got up on I could almost see the shock in her face as she stood upright with her head up as if to say "what? I meant to do that!"

There seems to be a bit of a queue at the minute. Yoko is in their house laying a lovely egg for us and Mabel is hanging around in the run. Mabel doesn't like to lay with company see so she has to wait until Yoko is done, looks like Mabel is getting desperate, I guess it's like only having one toilet in the house and when you gotta go... Yoko's out and Mabel's in. I had hoped I'd be able to get Yoko's egg before Mabel jumped in, but Mabel was too quick for me - oh well. I just like to know who laid the eggs...

Mabel hadn't laid actually. I just went up to give their house a bit of a clean out (as the gorgeous one pushed the snooze button one too many times this morning)and there was only 1 egg, it definitely looked like a Yoko egg and while I was halfway through cleaning the wood shavings, in came Mabel, looked at me as if I were interupting and walked out again. Two minutes later she was back again, wandering around in the clean wood shavings and going in and out of the nesting box, which I hadn't cleaned. She's definitely settled down in there now, so I expect another lovely egg is on it's way - I didn't stop to watch, it felt like something she should be alone for...

As we head for winter and everything gets colder, the gorgeous one now has given the girls extra straw and extra wood shavings to keep them warm at night and is making sure that he closes up the house, all snug and cosy. We're supposed to put vaseline on their crests apparently to stop frost bite getting to it - that's going to be fun when we get to that I'm sure, especially trying to catch Omelette! Yet another adventure for us to have as chicken keepers...