Yesterday was a horrible day, lots of rain and very windy. The ground soon became waterlogged. Particulary outside the chicken hut where it turned into a quagmire. So I did not look forward to telling Ian that some of the chickens had put themselves to bed under the shed last night and he was going to have to fish them out. He had a rather nasty glint in his eye as he came in from rolling around in the mud for several minutes. As if I would have done it on purpose…
We’ve changed again where we feed the chickens as I cannot stand the strain every morning of watching the chickens navigate the pond, sometimes falling in as they race to their food, and I then have to dry them off so they don’t get chilled. So I have started to feed them in the small field to the side of the chicken shed. This has had the unfortunate result, however, of them doing circuits, and they still do the race round the pond, get to where the food used to be, run around there and then back up – over the pond again to where their food now is. So instead of solving this problem, I have in fact made it worse with them making two trips over the pond, frenzied to get to the corn first.
The ducks are let out second and just follow the squaking. The ducks are very used to going away at night and are still waiting by the back door when it gets to dusk. They are still concerned though that the door doesn’t open itself and go into a runner duck panic when they see me. And do the runner duck dance, moving towards the door and then away from it when the realise that I am there. We go through this routine every day. You would have thought they would be used to me by now.
Last Saturday when we went to the craft fare they got let out at 7.00 in the morning, and we had a mutiny. They refused to come out, preferring to wait until it got lighter!
It is still very wet and windy today. I don’t think I will let the angoras out today. I don’t think they will mind.