Follow my leader

It was cold and wet here this morning, so I decided to give the chickens a choice of breakfasts.  They could get their beaks into some warm mash, or they could munch on their normal pellets.

I put most of their food in little cups which can be hung on the outside of the cage if it's good weather, or inside the cage if it looks like rain.  I also throw a few pellets around the run so they can have fun scratching around to find them.  As it was raining heavily today, all their food went inside the covered cage area.

When I opened the pop-hole, Rebecca and Punk hurtled out as usual, got to the open cage gate ....... and hesitated.   Hmmmm.  Was that rain they saw before them?   Did they like rain?   Neither of them could remember, so they dithered around, just inside the gate.

Mad Irene had no such problem!   She ran full pelt down the ramp, forced a path between the two Araucanas and raced up the steps into the top part of the run.   The two little Lavender bantams took off after her.  After all, Irene knows best.

But confusion reigned once they reached their destination.   Where were their pellets?  There were always pellets round here in the morning!  Punk did a quick recce in case I'd hidden them somewhere, discovered I hadn't and realised she was getting wet.  So she took herself back to the cage.

What made things even more confusing for Rebecca was a distinct lack of  Fizz.  By now she would normally be doing her best to avoid his amorous attentions, but he was nowhere to be seen.   He, very sensibly, had taken one look at the weather and decided that today the chicken equivalent of a Full English Breakfast was called for.

Rebecca looked hopefully at Irene; were they going back inside too?  But apparently not.  Rebecca is too young to remember the time I heard a commotion in the hen run and rushed out to the rescue in a torrential downpour.  I arrived, drenched through to my knickers, only to find it was Irene doing her Gene Kelly "Singing in the Rain" impersonation!   I was not impressed.

So Rebecca trudged round after Irene, but cast many a longing glance at the rest of the flock, all nice and dry.  It's one of the drawbacks of being an acolyte.  Where the leader goes - you must follow.