Coup in the Coop and other chickens

Dear reader, this week I acquired two chickens.  One was a present from the online shopping genius.  This was from the garden centre and not flown in from China.  It sheds a floral display upon the pavement at night.  The other aquisition will be  in huge trouble if she sheds a floral display instead of eggs.  














 Chicken keeping is not new to me, I am an experienced chicken whisperer.  This started a few years ago when I aquired  two 'point of lay' chickens, Cluck and Scratch.  I need only wander into the garden with a bag of corn and they were genuflecting at my feet.  


 'Point of lay', I saw the point but they didn't.  I whispered, I coaxed, I said please, I demonstrated and  I even placed golf balls into the nesting box as encouragement but lay to them had an entirely different meaning especially if the sun was out.  Oh those two were living the life.  





Then one evening in that summer  My Him showed them red and white cardboard box and miraculously out popped an egg. Cluck was in business.  Scratch followed pretty quickly. 


The summer rolled on and the chickens made themselves at home.  




Yes accidents happened, we left coop shut and kitchen door open and I learnt that chickens improvised.  

As  you would expect from an expert shopper as myself not any hen house would do.  No, I had to have the best for my hens.   I bought the 6 by 6 of the coop world.    I bought  'The Cube', and it was on wheels.  My chickens could go on tour around the lawn. 



However, despite their camper-van existence Scratch one day went on an away day to our neighbour's garden and decided to stay for a sleepover in a hedge.  A fox found her. 

Cluck needed company so I purchased  a Black Rock.  She was big, she was pushy and she won the Battle of the Pecking Order.  She was also a rebel.   The acquisition of  'Big Rock'  was the start of Mutiny in the Coop.  We found ourselves living Animal Farm.   Big Rock refused to lay an egg ever again.  To make matters worse she  extended her revolt by pretending to be a cockerel.   Her dawn crow was enough to bring the garden to a standstill.   Even my washing refused to billow in the wind when  Big Rock crowed.  The revolution grew and Cluck  joined the uprising. She began to lay eggs without shells.  

There was nothing for it but a retirement home.  One day I boxed up Cluck and Big Rock and drove them to a chicken retirement home on Romney Marsh.

On the return journey I picked up two more layers.  





These two I named Chocolate and Caramel.  


They liked to nestle in the herb bed and make themselves oven ready to tease me.   They gave us two years of egg production together and not a sniff of insurgence. 

This summer Caramel became poorly.  I tried to perk her up with a spa bath knowing that every female likes a bit of a pamper.  She soaked  in a bucket of  Epsom salts  but to no avail.  She died in the summer.  Chocolate  bravely put aside grief and supplied us through the autumn with produce from her rear.  In return we decided it was time for a new friend for her.  On Thursday we aquired a Susssex and called her Allsorts.   We will be on the look out for insurgence but for the moment even the coop ladder has her in a panic.  

Disclaimer .... I have never purchased a chicken from my favourite channel. 

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