Sticky Chickens

Ahh, chickens. If I've been relatively quiet lately it's because this blog depends on two factors in my life; the Hollow Garden, and my rather odd sense of humour. The sad truth is that for the last few weeks I've been working so hard I've seen very little of either of them. Until, of course, I try to change anything to do with the chickens.

Problem; the 'chicks'* are now sexually mature, and have taken to fighting. The Buff Orpington gets the worst of it, since he's a bit smaller than the Plymouth Rocks at this point, and yesterday I had to rescue the poor bleeding thing before they really did him a mischief. Staying quietly out of the way was no longer an option for him; the Rocks had his number and were quite keen to punch his ticket, in a manner of speaking. Time to separate them.

'No problem,' I said to Witchypoo. 'We'll move him down into the empty half of the main run, and he can sleep on his own in the broody coop. He can stick beside the Big Girls so he doesn't feel isolated.'

In anything to do with chickens, sadly, every solution causes three new problems. Problem number one was that Monsieur le Buff has higher hormone levels than a Wimbledon ball boy - and he was corralled next to six feathery lay-deez. First he found his voice for the first time (and boy, did he find it), and then he found his wings - clipped and theoretically flight-incapable, but what is physics compared to a raging... er, a raging whatever-it-is-that-chickens-use?** Needless to say, when I got home he was in the run with the Big Girls showing them what a Big Boy he is. They didn't look particularly impressed, I have to say.

Problem number two was that Big Boy was not invited into the coop at the end of the day. Chicken ladders are an acquired skill, and he opted instead to attempt to insert himself into the mini-woodpile that the Big Girls perch on. It was getting dark when I found him, but he still had enough energy to lead me a merry little dance around the run for a few minutes - which didn't get my vote as I was still wearing my Writery Suit. I caught him and passed him over the fence to Witchypoo for insertion into the broody coop.

Problem number three was that Big Boy was too tired to co-operate with the nest box. With his head stuck out of the pophole into the run and his arse hanging out of the inspection hatch he did the only sensible thing and simply fell asleep, leaving WP and I to stuff him in as best we could. I expect we'll find it looking like an overstuffed pillow in the morning, but hey.

By this time the other two Big Boys, who had earlier been watching with interest from the top of the gate to their run, had also dozed off. When they're awake they're easy to scare back into the run, but they were too far gone to be intimidated. They were also to stupid to be shoved, and simply hung onto the lintel of the gate for all they were worth - which is how I came to be prizing two upside-down, madly flapping bundles of squawking death off the gate, one toe at a time. Who says growing your own is dull?



*See that? Although I still call them 'the chicks' they are so obviously hulking great brutes now that inverted commas are needed to indicate that I am not actually in need of an urgent eye examination.

**Oh, great. I wish I hadn't looked. Ever passed an ice-cube with a kiss? Well, never again.