The Chicken Diaries – #3

Dear Diary,

9:00am

We’ve been up for nearly three hours now and a little bit of food wouldn’t go astray. We’ve been here for nearly a week now and two of the girls have been leaving eggy gifts each morning while we wait for our lazy human to arrive and remove this milk crate. I think he’s blocking the door to get us using the nesting boxes rather than laying in random spots. He’s had to pick up a couple of eggs laid in corners of the coop and a couple of times in the middle of the run!  This mansion may be big but I want out and when he finally arrives I’m once again the first one out the door, with the other chickenladies still need coaxing to leave.

It’s a little weird getting accustomed to new ways. The food delivery system is in the form of a bucket with holes in the side but we also get lots of treats each day. So much so that the other chickenladies have taken to calling the human Treatgod because when he brings out those tasty morsels from the big blue house he lives in, we are his most devoted and devout followers. Some of the treats include blended pumpkin with molasses and mixed grains, various fruit platters and vegetable sides as well as regular snacks of home-made yoghurt.  We’ve almost finished all the green stuff growing in the run and we can see more outside of the security door but the human isn’t letting us get to it.

The other chickens are bullying me a lot. There’s a lot of henpecking happening which we do instinctively but the human sometimes gets angry when the others all gang up and pick on me. I think I might stay close to him. They are too chicken to do anything near him (See what I did there!).

I’ve been hovering around Treatgod all day helping him make and test out a ladder plus something called a roosting bar. I have no idea what it’s for. I’m assuming roosters use it, hence the name. We keep poking our heads in the way which is making the project take much longer.

As you can see I’m the only stunt chicken that is brave enough to climb up the ladder to the food. The others just run around below and squawk at not being able to reach the treats. I may be bullied and bottom of the pecking order but I’m the one at the top of the ladder! Silly ladychickens.

The human has had to drop the roosting bar down to half the height it originally was because we have no idea how to get up there. We begin the climb up then we freak out and jump down. Because some of the girls are still struggling with balancing on the thin branches he’s used, Treatgod has made a non-gapped ramp out of the ladder so we can clamber up.  Naturally I’m the first one up testing this precarious walk up to the narrow roosting bar. To tell the truth it’s the bribes of food he places on the bar that got me up there, it’s scary stuff!

 

 

 

Treatgod also picks up the not so brave of our group and puts them on the roosting bar to get them used to it. All they do is eat the food then jump down. It’s going to be a slow process. He’s so determined to get us up off the floor. It seems he doesn’t like us sleeping and wallowing in our poop. Personally I don’t see the what’s the problem as we’re perfectly happy there.

 

6:00pm

So once again it’s dark and the human is still picking up hens from all over the chicken run and putting them in the coop. This time however he’s placing us on the roosting bar. Naturally we’re jumping down and nesting on the floor in the corner in our comfortable chicken pile. A couple of us occasionally stay on the roost for a while but most of us insist on crawling into a crevice on the ground floor to sleep.

He really doesn’t like that some of us go into the nesting boxes to sleep either. Despite his efforts to shove plant pots and bits of wood in there at bedtime we still manage to squeeze in there and sleep all crushed up in our own private studio apartment. It takes up to 15 minutes before he gives up. I think he knows that even the ones who were staying on the roost have jumped down and joined the chicken-pile the moment he’s walked away. Treatgod is not amused.

PS: Treatgod still hasn’t taken the time to anoint us with names. I really wish he would.