Interesting day. 7C a light breeze and overcast.
There was a small amount of the pellets I left last night left but they hadn't had any other food, nor had the geese. Everything was exactly as I left it.
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I got the cleaning and water done straight away and had them out on the allotment for a couple of hours.
These past couple of weeks with the chickens being on the allotment is much closer to how I think chickens should be kept. I dug, they spread and debugged.
Lima needs keeping an eye on because she dashes off to find something new, or back to the bush she's been excavating. There are tiny worm like bugs living around the roots of the bush and there are lots of them.
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This is my new plot. In the rough on the right are a couple of raspberry bushes and a gooseberry bush. There is also a fruit tree of some variety growing. I'm going to plant in the left hand side down to where Henry and the hens are standing in the first picture.
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That's Fret rearranging my weed pile. She's just checking.
There were bits of board partially buried along some of the edges. The chickens and me with a spade can keep the edges clean. They shifted quite a lot of soil this afternoon. They weren't interested in the worms I dug up; three different types of worm.
Fret and Ella eat slaters (a type of wood louse), Lima will eat a couple and decide there are tastier things it seems, and Carbon won't touch them. Carbon out of all the hens is the most nervous about being out and often goes back to just inside the allotment run gate and watches the others. She was a bit more confident today.
Lima has decided that standing on the fork edge is the best way to ensure she doesn't miss anything.
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Something alarmed Fret and Lima while they were under their favourite bush and they ran/flew back to the allotment run. They were fast enough.
Fret laid went to lay an egg and when she had finished she stood on the coop ramp and called for Henry. Henry was out on the allotment with me. Henry responded and went to collect her. This is the first time I've seen Henry do a proper escort job. It seems that in both the coop run and allotment run are considered safe by Henry and he doesn't bother collecting the hens. On the allotment itself is different even though the distance between him and the hen may be less.
I also saw Henry herd Ella. He doesn't do that in the runs; he hackle flashes them.
A good day was had by all I think.
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