I know you’ve been waiting to hear about my new flock of chickens. It’s been awhile since I’ve caught you up.
I’m pleased to report they are every bit as entertaining as the last group. “Blackie,” the sole survivor of the last flock, remains entertaining (even if she runs over to the barn every morning to lay her egg in another coop!) and has even displayed some Lassie-esque skills. One evening when the door to the yard had blown shut, she stood outside the kitchen door until we came out. I exclaimed: “Why aren’t you in bed!” She ran along and showed me exactly why, and hustled into the coop when I opened the door.
I’m afraid she might have lost her preferred spot on the roost. Because one early evening when I went to shut the coop door, I wasn’t sure if she’d come in yet. I peered in and asked, and she ducked her head down under the bar and looked at me, as if to say, “WTF?”
The new flock loves to roost. They roost everywhere. On the rim of the compost area. On the rim of the cold frame raised bed– the only bed outside of the fenced garden. And when I came around and saw them in a row up on the garden tractor, I burst out laughing.
They also, like their predecessors, love to garden with me. They can’t get inside the garden fence, but they will often walk around just outside of it, pecking at bugs and weeds along the fence. And when I’m working on the potatoes, weeding or, this morning, hilling, they all come over and “help” me. They do stick mostly to the weeds, and mucking about for bugs in the compost pile. It’s all very interesting. We all are quite satisfied with ourselves when we’re done.
No eggs yet– I’m thinking July. They do not know about the barn, so I’m hoping they’ll lay in the two roosting boxes I’ve tucked snugly in their coop. I’ve heard Americaunas sometimes lay outside the coop. I got them for their blue eggs– and I expect blue eggs in those roosting boxes! It will probably be a game of hide and seek just as it was with the last group.