The chickens' grand day out

Margot perches on Nik’s arm, enjoying the greenhouse view

Poor chickens. It’s been raining for a week. And hard. The other day we got 10 days’ rain in just 12 hours. It’s making their feet so muddy, despite the fact that the shelter under the coop and the tarpaulin under the run stops them getting rained on themselves.

The trouble is, the ground is just so sodden that it can’t absorb any more, and now it’s starting to sit on the surface.

So for some respite we put them in the greenhouse while I gave the coop and run a really thorough cleaning – and paid particular attention to their little ladder, which they’ve made muddy and slippery on their way up and down to lay eggs.

Gerry, who has established herself as the boisterous bully of the flock was totally freaked out by it. While Margot and Barbara ran off to scratch in the gravelled borders, climb on the compost bags and investigate the potting bench, she sat by the door being small.

She joined in, eventually, helping herself to the green weeds I’d stacked up in a trug, and I think in the end they all rather enjoyed themselves, and were quite disappointed to go back home half an hour later, after some roosting on my arm.

They didn’t seem to notice their sparkling clean steps, and they didn’t pay much attention to the log I’d put into the run to give them somewhere to stand and get their feet out of the mud, but I’m sure they will.

One thing the experience did do, though, was make up our minds for certain that we’d build a bigger run for them in the garden, with logs, wood chips and places to perch by spring.

Related posts:

1. The chickens' progress
2. Our chickens are moulting heavily
3. Establishing a pecking order
4. Our first egg
5. The chickens go back undercover

Tagged as: chickens