How did I get here?

Have you ever been in a situation where you are so lost in your thoughts that your mind and body quite happily function to get you where you're going safely - but with no conscious directive from you?  Basically, you're on automatic pilot.   Suddenly, you wake up, look around and wonder how on earth you got where you are.  You certainly can't remember the journey.   Well that's exactly what happened to Punk this morning.

In an earlier post I mentioned that we'd built a smoking shelter for the chickens.  It would be an extra refuge for them during inclement weather; an alternative to one of the two covered coop cages.  But so far each and every one of those ungrateful pieces of poultry have shunned it.   Not one of them has deigned to put so much as half a beak across the threshold.

When I went to open up this morning, it was obvious that Punk had something on her mind.  Unusually for her, she exited the coop reasonably gracefully.  Her normal practice, once she's finally decided to get up, is to elbow the others out of her way so that she can rush into  into the run to see what she's been missing.   Today, it was more of a saunter.  I could almost (but not quite) hear her asking, "I say old girl, could I just squeeze past you please?"

I was busying myself poo-picking, so wasn't really watching what was going on around me.   When I'd finished that lovely job, I had a look round to see who was doing what and where.   It was then that I spotted Punk in the smoking shelter.   And she had that "How did I get here?" look on her face.

Fizz looking down at a rather subdued Punk

I put it all down to the fact that she's left it until now to moult.  She's eating and drinking well, her poo is as it should be, so she's not ill.  No, I think it's simply that she's suddenly realised she looks pretty silly at the moment.  She has feathers sticking out at odd angles and her tail has disappeared.   She doesn't like it, not one bit.   Remember, this is a bantam who thinks she's a full-size Brahma - she's taken my son on in a bout of fisticuffs before now.   So I think she was in deep thought about how she could make the best of a bad situation.   And that's why she ended up in the smoking shelter!