Chickens playing out in the garden

Since it is a nice (if windy) day and Lily-dog was distracted in the top part of the garden barking at the bin men (they’re stealing our rubbish, woof woof woof!), I decided to let some of the chickens play out in the garden this morning. (Because the garden is pretty open at the moment, and there is invariably a dog running around, this doesn’t happen much.)

Mauve, Blue and slowly refeathering Lime – three of the original ISA Browns – were the first batch out – enjoying the good pickings of the raised bed next to the coop, including a rather succulent and long worm! (Photos of Mauve, Blue then Lime & Blue)

Green, the last of the ISAs, wasn’t sure if she wanted to play out too – and just watched from on top of the food store dustbin.

Ginger though, one of the new batch Black Rocks, took matters into her own hands wings – she jumped up onto the nest boxes (bottom right) then over the fence.

And had a good peck around in the soil as a reward.

By then, the ISAs wanted to go back into their run so I let Blacks – the other new Black Rock – out into the garden instead. None of the new batch of chickens has laid any eggs yet but when I first went down, she was in the nest box – not laying but clearly thinking about it – and if she’s grown up enough to think about laying, she’s big enough to go in the garden! (There is actually some logic to this – if they’re thinking about laying, they’re more submissive and crouch down, like they would for a cockerel, rather than running away when I approach, making them a lot easier to pick up.)

And her short burst of freedom obviously got her in the mood – almost as soon as I went back to the house, I heard some “OMG!OMG!” clucking. A few minutes later, this was waiting for me in the nest box.

A little smaller than the ISAs’ eggs but otherwise perfect. Excellent debut, Ms Blacks!

Other posts you might like:

Should we get more chickens? Expanding the tribe: four new chickens! Where chickens go shopping for clothes New chickens settling in