It's always the little voices ;)

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Chasing sparrows...

...collared doves, wood pigeons and running away from big girl hens can take its toll on a chickie...

She fell asleep whilst I wrote about her adventures.

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Spring Cleaning

Not my house no, though that does actually need one.

...but the blog!

I asked my daughter to draw the ladies for an egg box label, (she's off to Uni to study Illustration, owns has a drawing tablet and lots of exotic drawing programmes. I'm still a pencil & paper kinda gal).  

We chose Ruby, Peggy & Annie as we decided their colours would look the most striking together, rather than cram all six of them on.  Annie's markings caused her all sorts of problems, I decided not to ask what draft this finally was...

I liked it so much I thought I'd put it on the blog but it didn't quite go with the wood effect.  I thought it didn't go with quite a lot of the themes I tried.  Many theme variations later, I went with white.

It looks a bit stark, I'm not decided, you might see it change until I finally make up my mind.

I love the picture though <3

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My husband...

...is a very tolerant man :)

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We're going on a bug hunt...

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Explorer Annie

It was delightfully sunny today, so I figured I'd let Annie have a wander around the garden.

She was beside herself, trying to scoff anything that would fit into that little beak of hers. 

I guess she's been hatched in an incubator and raised under heat, as her 'big hen etiquette' needed a bit of work. Trying to extract that juicy bit of sweetcorn from Violet's beak, was never going to be a good move.

Luckily it was Violet and she was just sent her on her way with a quick scolding.  

Chickie has now learnt to be mindful of the ladies...

Only Ruby had a good peck and grumble about Chickie, she is very protective of her No3 status.

Annie strikes a pose for the camera

Chickie tried to dust bath in the grass, so I picked her up and popped her in the official dust bathing spot.

She sat still for a while...

...then there was no stopping her!

Violet strolled by, looking gargantuan and cast me a look that said "You ok'd this right?".

The girls busied themselves bug-hunting by the coop, whilst Chickie ran amok.

Ruby is notoriously difficult to get a picture of but I managed to get a lovely one today :) (I had zoom on max!)

A gorgeous gal

I think Chickie is settling in well :) x

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Annie

My little Barred Rock has a name, Annie!

Though I am currently calling her 'Chickie' as Annie seems a bit grown up.

This is the first picture I took of her, in her travelling box on the way home.  

 Her first photo shoot.

She has discovered people make excellent perches!

Some even read you a bedtime story!

Small people are good for cuddles...

 ...and climbing to the top of.

She discovered jumping off things is fun.  

The sofa is good ...

...as is the other sofa...

...and knees, they're the best
.

She looks huge in this picture!

But best of all, chillin' with her peeps on my stripy hat.

Where's my Apple?

I think she is going to grow up into a lovely girl :)

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Flowers...

You know when you go out to buy one thing and come back with something else...?

Well, flowers for the garden and my Mum's birthday present were on the agenda for today's little jaunt.

Some delightful flowers...that I did not buy.

This was most definitely not.

A six week old Plymouth Barred Rock that I did buy.

In my defence, I did manage to drive past the 'Poultry For Sale' sign once.  The second time wasn't quite so successful.



I remembered to buy my Mum her present though :)

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Broody loves company.

When I think about how long and hard I considered every minute detail when designing my coop, I'm always pleased I decided to put more than one nest box in. Researching through countless poultry books and on chicken forums, discovering recommended hen to nest box ratios.

I would hate to think of them having to cram into just one...

...sigh...


Turfing them out and locking the door so they could enjoy the rare spring sunshine wasn't entirely successful either.

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