Chicken Strippers

So here is the post about chickens that I didn’t promise to write …….

When we first got our chickens last year, I wrote a post (Fear and Loathing in Las Chickenas) in which I went public about my feather phobia. For those of you too lazy or incompetent to follow the link to remind yourselves of the content, here is the final paragraph from that hazy, bygone day in August 2008:

 “So for the time being, all is lovely in the chicken-garden. And perhaps by the time the moulting season comes around, the sight of tumble-weed balls of scraggy brown feathers rolling erratically around my feet will no longer fill me with the gut-wrenching, cardiac-arrest-inducing anxiety levels of a virtual-reality horror movie.”

Well, last autumn and winter came and went with an awful lot of rain, a considerably large number of eggs, and no sign of moulting whatsoever. The moult-free experience lulled me into a false sense of security, and as time passed, I continued to congratulate myself on the progress I was making toward combating my phobia.
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Promises Schmomises

You may recall that, back in July, I sort of committed myself to writing a series of blogs about the chickens, (EastHenders….What’s Goin’ On?). Even at the time, aware of my remarkable and extremely frustrating tendency to suddenly lose interest in projects or activities that are momentarily overwhelming me with enthusiasm, I hinted that the series would only last as long as did my interest in producing it.
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Does size matter?

The kittens are now the master and mistresses of the house. Or at least they think they are. And Max seems to agree.

Big tough Max weighs in at something over 30 kilos. And the kittens are between 560g and 720g (yes we did weigh them using kitchen scales, a cardboard box, and lots of persuasion to stay still!). So he is more than 50 times bigger than the smallest kitten – now named Mini-mum, as she so closely resembles her mother.

And yet Mini calmly settles down in the middle of Max’s bed. Will he eat her, or merely growl to scare her away?
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Puppy training, with distractions

The puppies are doing very well, and seem very ‘biddable’. Although they are very lively, and rush about trying to explore everything in their clumsy puppy way, they have also already learned to walk to heel.

So now we are taking them out four times a day, including at least two long walks around the lanes. The routine starts at dawn, with a first walk down the track and a run around our fields (I knew that cleared area around the outside of the new fence would prove useful!).
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Autumn Tumbles In

Time seems to be flying by. Too quickly.

It seems like only yesterday that we were moving in here to start our new(est) life in the Allier Spring. But suddenly, in the blink of a dream-blind eye, Summer has slipped away, and Autumn is falling all around.

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Five go Exploring

Just over four weeks ago, Mother Cat gave birth to five kittens.

In the light of previous experience, we didn’t expect all five to last many weeks. However, on day 28 all were still thriving, and they had learned how to strike a pose for the camera:
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