As everyone in the UK knows, the weather has been pretty rough, and still is in some places.
On Monday, we had the high wind and even in our sheltered garden, it took it’s toll.
I didn’t let them out of the pen to start with, as with the horrible rain and wind, I was worried they might get blown away.
But later on, as the rain died down and the sun threatened to come out, I let them out to survey the damage.
The first casualty was one of my red sunflowers….. looking at it, it had been dug round the roots, most likely by hens, and then was blown over
So here are the hens tucking into the seeds from the sunflowers…. I was drying the heads out so I could harvest the seeds, but I guess I have more sunflowers….
In front with the purple leg ring is Crispy, just behind her is Bunty.
Here are most of them, all crowded round, munching seeds.
From left to right: Turbo, Crispy, Mel, Chicken 22, Bunty and Terri 2 right at the back! The missing ladies from here is V8 and Ginger.
So here is V8 all on her own. She’s a funny lady, a bit shy, but very curious…. she’ll quite often do a great eagle noise impression whilst I clean them out….
She lays brown speckled eggs and she always lays them in the same place.
She’s very friendly, and is very well feathered considering she only came out of the battery farm in July.
Here is Chicken 22, named in memory of Chicken 11 who sadly passed away in the spring….. I still miss her, but this lady is just like her!
22 is lot bigger than 11 but she has that same crazy look about her and the floppy comb…..
22 is quite nervous and is the bottom ranking hen, she’s become much friendlier and doesn’t seem to be as worried anymore.
So, back to the sunflower massacre…. 22 is in the front, with her typical startled face, then Crispy, with her concentrating face.
Mel is just behind Crispy’s tail and Terri 2 is on the other side of the plant, mid-blink! I do believe that is Turbo’s neck in the bottom left corner.
Here is another picture of the ladies having a munch.
Ginger is in the middle with the pink leg ring, Terri 2 is on the left with the green leg ring and Crispy is still in best place with her purple leg ring.
You can tell that Crispy is the boss here, even though Mel is in overall command, Crispy is the right hand ‘bird’ and does Mel’s dirty work…..
Ginger has the biggest, puffiest tail out of all of the hens.
When we first got her, she didn’t have many feathers but her tail was huge!!
She was terrible trouble to start with, a real bully….. but once she settled and stopped trying to beat everyone up, she turned out to be a really lovely hen.
Here is Ginger when we first got her.
In this picture she is actually facing up to herself in the mirror….. she was a bully and thought she should be the boss.
When we first let her in with the other hens, she tried to take on all three of our existing hens at the same time!!
I don’t think any hen or person had ever been nice to her and she felt like she had to fight for everything….. poor girl.
Now, she’s very easy going, happy to be picked up and will sit on your lap for a cuddle…..
The sunflower is still laying on the lawn, the girls don’t seem to have finished with it yet…. maybe I’ll leave it there just a bit longer.
Crispy Snippets 