Thick chickens.........

[Big Al]

....... Not on your nelly !!

Daft sod me was cleaning the coup out yesterday morning and left the nest box open while I went for some new straw. Anyway, on the route to the greenhouse for the bag of straw the kettle replaced the thoughts in my head and I went in the house ot make a brew. Then I sat down, fell asleep, woke up had dinners blah de blah. Went down the garden at tea time and found Speck the speckledy hen missing.

Looked over the fence and here she is in next doors garden.

Raced round into the next grove and asked to go in the garden, chased her for about 10 minutes then lost her. Eventually found her tucked under some brambles and some rocksin such a space a mouse would have trouble. Lunged for her neck and off she flys into the next garden.......

Same here, chased her for a while and now with my wife helping and the aid of some netting we still managed to lose her..... into the cat ladies garden !! At this point we decided she was a gonner and went home because it was getting to dusk and the cat ladies garden is well overgrown and dangerous.

Didn't sleep well again but this time it was about the chicken, strangely enough I always told myself they were egg layers and not pets.

Eventually got to sleep and at 7.15 this morning my wife screaming up the stairs that speck is back. She was seen being chased by a fox late in the night but had flew up onto a branch in a tree and stayed the night. Now we useually have owls in the same tree hunting all night but then her she is walking home across the fences of 4 neighbours to our fence. I got up, no glasses on so couldn't even see the area my wife was scxreaming about then all of a sudden plop! down she flew into our garden and calmly walked up to the coup and sat there waiting for the run door to be opened!!!

Waltzed into the run, had some food and a good drink of water then got picked on by the matriarch of the coup, henrietta before sulking off to lay an egg....

I trully though it was a gonner as who would think a chicken knew where it lived !!

Anyway, I've never clipped their wings in case they need to fly up out of the way of preditors but today she got both her wings clipped well and trully !

BA

[Green Aura]

Glad she's back. Did you read Little Grey Rabbit books by any chance Al?

[battybird]

You would think with all that excitement she would have gone off lay!! Glad she is back.

[Thomzo]

Phew, good to know she's back and safe.

When I got my first ex-batts, I set up a temporary run away from the hen-house. About a week after I got them, I carried them to the new run. That evening, I carried them back to their house. The next day, I carried them out to the run again, leaving the hen house door open. The weather turned nasty and suddenly I noticed that they'd jumped over the fence and were walking back home.

Clever heh?

Zoe

[trinder]

No they never were "thick" we just didn't measure their value system against their own. If they are taught the importance of our value system on a scale that they consider valuable, it is not hard to see how smart they are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUNj4UdS ... =endscreen

[matowakan]

Glad she is back and ok but the story did make me laugh as I have been there too!!!!