Sometimes chickens go where they’re not supposed to, the lounge invasion posted earlier in the month being a case in point. Last week someone else told me she found one of her chickens at the top of her stairs. Chickens waltzing into kitchens seems so commonplace that it’s hardly worth mentioning.
Fortunately our mob can’t get to our house, or I’m sure we’d find them in all sorts of odd nooks and crannies. However, they do have a large run, with plenty of room to run around and not bump into each other. But like many people who keep pet chickens, ours are allowed out in the garden, providing we’re around to supervise. Although it’s too cold to stand around with them for long, we’ve still let them out as often as we can over the winter. This morning there was actually some sun, so the gate of the run was opened up and out they all came.
Then, after only a few minutes, as one they all turned and went back in again! No mad panic, no free-for-all, no elbowing each other out of the way. Just an orderly, well-disciplined stroll back into the run. They reminded me of a group of old biddies taking their morning “constitutional” along the promenade of a somewhat genteel seaside town.
When I say “all”, that’s not strictly true. Pom-Pom hadn’t noticed the mass exodus as she was busy. It suddenly dawned on her that things had gone just a bit too quiet and that made her peer out from under her enormous hairdo. Normally she can see the other chickens’ feet all over the show, even though she can’t see the rest of them. There wasn’t a foot to be seen! Not a single one!
“Yikes!” she thought. On reflection, she’s far too posh to have used a word like that. Most probably the thought that passed through her mind was more like, “Oh my word, I wonder where the riff-raff have gone.”
She was obviously extremely worried by the absence of the rest of the flock - after all, you never know when the Vikings might come on the rampage again. So she was picked up and ceremoniously deposited back in the run.
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