Well that was a bit of a gap between postings – you must have thought I’d given up with it all. Well, I hadn’t. Its just that things took longer to do than I thought – a recurring characteristic of mine. I didn’t think that postings along the lines of ‘Done a bit more but not finished yet’ would prove of much interest to either of my readers – so I laid off writing for a while.
The good news is – it’s finished! After a two-day final push the chooks now have a place to run around that’s completely fox-proof. It was hard work for me at least, as the pictures will show you what a weird shape the run is, butted up in that odd-shaped corner. I’m not the best at carpentry, or DIY in general, so the finish is – how can I describe it – ‘rustic’ to say the least. Still, I’ve seen the prices some people charge for bespoke runs a fraction of the size, so can’t complain too much.
So here it is in all its glory.
Oh, and by the way the chooks are here. They have been here for two weeks actually, but as we were all off for the school holidays we could keep an eye on them during the day, and still lock them safely up at night. When ‘the girls’ – as I believe it’s popular to refer to pet chooks – first arrived they were a slightly sorry bunch, all huddled together as one mass in the corner of their house. We think they must have spent most of their lives, certainly the two weeks between us choosing them and then picking them up, in very confined conditions, and probably found the echoing vaults of their new home a bit daunting.
However they have soon overcome their initial shock and are acclimatised to their new (spoilt) lifestyle. Even now their characters are coming through. The youngest seems to be the first to exhibit new behaviour – the first to come out the outer pop-hole, the first to try roosting; the partridge pekin seems to be the explorer, going the furthest around the garden, even jumping into my lap and perching on my knee for a better view.
They are, it must be said, total time-wasters; we catch ourselves spending ages just watching them scratching around, calling and clucking to each other, exploring their new world. It was also a useful exercise being on hand, as they have got into the occasional scrape. Chickens can fly over picket fencing when they want to, but they can't reverse out of gaps behind the shed. Luckily we were on hand to avoid any major disasters or trips to the vet.
They've established a routine for us (note closely how that sentence has been constructed!), and expect to be let out pretty early in the morning, scratch around all day in their run, get let out for a general scratch around after school, then take themselves to bed around 7 in the evening. They've worked out that their house keeps the rain off their backs and that scratching in the dirt brings up all sorts of goodies. And that there's plenty of cover if they feel threatened.
Don't know what I was worried about.
Just need a few eggs now, m'dears.
