Sunday 27 April 2014

April in the Chicken Coop

This month in the chicken coop...

... it's birthday time. Our girls were born at the end of April 2012 and came to us in August of that year. We helped them celebrate with an extra handful of corn or two.

Early days with the hens - Pepper in particular looks decidedly young.

... Lemon decides spring is here and has had her first broody bout of the season. Funnily enough we've never had problems with any of the others but for Lemon it was a regular occurrence last year. It becomes quite a battle to persuade her to stop sitting on nothing and literally cool down!

Yes, she's even neglecting to sit on the egg that Frog kindly laid her.

... the sparrows are back. Both years we've lived here we've had nesting sparrows, followed by a dozen fledglings hoping round the garden. They make extensive use of the bird feeder and the girls love pigging out on their discards. We have great fun watching them charge across the garden every time they see a bird.

... and of course it's been a sad month with the loss of Fizzy. The other three have showed no signs that they've even noticed, but we've found it very strange to see them wandering around as a trio.