eggs again!

two of the chookens are laying eggs. one of them is laying the the laying box - where i put two fake eggs (thanks mum, again!) - i assume this is alice, cos that's where she used to lay. but one of them has been laying from her perch - i assume it's pearl cos her comb is much bigger than molly cocoa's, which means she's probably older. Anyway, these eggs smash into their droppings box. it's totally feral. am thinking that maybe i should remove their perches for a few days until they lay in the laying box. they can all sleep in the laying box (alice, betty and emma used to sleep there).

by the say, i can't believe i haven't called a chicken "daisy" yet. the next ones will be called "daisy" and "claire" - i prefer clara, but jan and i say it very differently - she says "claire-a" and i say "clar-a", so we agreed the chicken would get confused if we called her different names.

welcome molly cocoa and pearl

alice (the chook) seemed so lonely without her buddy betty, who seems to have left us for hopefully another happy home. so last weekend jan and i drove out to macclesfield (aka woop woop) and picked up two new chookens.

one is quite pale and has white spots on her neck, and her name is pearl. the other is quite dark, her name is molly cocoa. they were both 18 weeks when we got them.

i thought at first that pearl was going to be the bottom of the pecking order (alice was inevitably going to be the head chook), but it seems that molly isn't exactly the full quid, and she seems to be the bottom.

we clipped their wings straight away, but molly was keen to fly out of the coop (maybe she's not so silly, actually). i found her perched on top of the coop wall, with jess barking up at her. hmmm. scary first day.

anyway, so i worked on finally putting a roof on the coop. no more stress that they'll decide to fly away. i was really keen for it not to look like a cage - repress that truth - and i wanted them to have some shelter and some sun. so i scrounged around the yard and found a huge piece of shade cloth and some chicken wire. i went down to bunnings and got myself some more chicken wire and spent a day hammering and piecing bits together. jan helped with the tricky bits. it looks great - i'm real proud of it. the girls seem happy enough too.

today we spent about 3 hours together in the garden - me reading, them pecking around. they are starting to act as a flock, rather than as a brazen lone chicken and two scared little chooks.

i timed it well, cos it's now pouring with rain again. i spent some time during my lunch break planting endive, kale and coriander. the seedlings will love being rained in properly :>

bye bye betty bigbottom?

it seems that betty bigbottom has gone on an adventure. she's not been seen in her coop for over a day now. it's even possible she's been gone since friday (it's monday as i write) - on Saturday I was out all day, and when i went to hang with the chooks on sunday, betty was not there. just alice palace, looking very lonely, but not particularly aware that anything was going on, you know, just pecking around like a chicken. last night, though, she looked so lonely, perched on her bed all alone. betty and alice usually cuddle up together. i suspect alice was chilly without her hotty.

over the last month or so, betty had been getting onto the roof of their coop. i wasn't sure how she got up there - there was a chair in the coop, and i thought maybe she used that, so i removed it. i also clipped their wings (well looked up my chook book and cut feathers according to what it said). and i fenced all the vegie areas of the garden so that i could let them out more often (hoping that would curb her needing-to-get-out-and-about tendencies). but all to no avail. she still kept adventuring. what about alice? well she followed betty.

so, when i discovered that betty was missing (sunday morning), i checked over the fence in the neighbours' yards (no luck), and called to her, and listened. i could hear a chook in the distance, and alice was definitely communicating with a chook. but alas, i discovered that the people who have just moved in two doors down have four chooks and i'm sure that's what i could hear.

a chook has got loose before (i think it was betty that time too!) and jan and i went door knocking to all our neighbours, so i'm assuming that if any of them had found a chook (or an extra chook), they would've said something.

i dreamt last night that betty came home. i'm still hoping. that's what happened last time - one morning (ok, well the very next morning), she was there, she was just back.

she's a plucky one, betty. she has a big bottom, a big fluffy, white bottom. she doesn't like being held and she doesn't communicate much, she just wants to peck on the ground and explore new things. but if you see her, send her home. alice and i miss her.