D'ya wanna make something of it?

For the past week, most days have started out and ended up with heavy mists.  In between, we've been treated to overcast skies.   Sun?  What sun?   And with the amount of wintry daylight diminishing rapidly, all in all it's been a bit miserable of late.

Which may explain some of the tetchy behaviour I've been seeing in the chicken run.  

If you'd asked me which was the least likely chicken to get irritable, I'd have said Irene.   She may be dilly, she may poke her beak into everything, but fractious?  No.   Well actually "yes", as it turns out.  Twice now I've seen her take a run at Fizz.   It was more like the kind of feint a boxer might do, a sort of "Gerrrrofff" kind of thing.  And he ran away!   Well I suppose if you saw a huge bundle of white feathers bearing down on you, you would too.  Irene is huge compared to Fizz.

Whatever the cause, it must have been catching, because moments later Titian did the same thing to Tu-Tu.  The little Pekin looked absolutely astounded!   But she erred on the side of caution and quickly backed away.  We had a repeat performance 5 minutes later.   The size difference between Titian and Tu-Tu is even more marked and the behaviour less understandable.   Then I remembered that when the Poland bantams first arrived, Titian made Pom-Pom's life a misery.   However, Titian has been remarkably quiet all summer.   Having said that, since she's moulted and re-feathered, she has been much livelier.  I now have my fingers crossed that she doesn't return to her old bullying ways.

As I've said in earlier posts, Punk has been a right bitch for a while.  Now, just to show us that she's well hard, she has just (just mind you) decided to moult.  She looks a wreck!   And she's not happy about that at all, so she glares at me when I go into the run - apparently it's all my fault.

And now, just to round things off, everyone has stopped laying.   My big bear of a neighbour came round to get half-a-dozen eggs and went away with one tiny bantam egg cupped in his huge hand.  It was all I had to give him.

Oh well ..... it'll soon be Spring.