First Day of Freedom!

First off, it's official, the new chooks have names.  So now I can introduce, Queenie, the Sussex Ranger, Bessie the Amber Ranger, Maggie the Magpie Ranger and Victoria the Speckledy.  It took me over a week to sort that lot out.  I had loads of ideas but none of them fitted.  In the end I let them be named whatever seemed right rather than trying to stick to the flower theme.  I was never much for themes anyway, my brain is far too random for that.  So far the only one who is remotely friendly is Victoria, the others freak when I go near them.

I let the new girls out to roam today.  I had originally decided on tomorrow but as the weather is meant to be horrible then I thought I'd let them have their first day of freedom in the sunshine.  They came out quickly.  Almost as quick as Crazy Chook ran over there to see them.  Honestly it was a top speed sprint accross the garden, that bird must have Ostrich genes in her somewhere, she is so fast!  As predicted she had a bit of a pop at a couple of her new buddies.  Bessie seems to be top of the hit list.  Luckily so far at least it has just been a swift peck here and there, which is to be expected really so that's fine.  I knew she would be the one who would follow them around because she was so interested while they were penned.

When they had been out for about an hour I sprinkled some corn for them all.  I did it in two places so the two groups could eat side by side but without competition.  Sadly the new girls didn't realise I had done this for their benefit and munched their way over to the other girls' patch.  The next thing I knew Bessie and Snowdrop were having a bundle.  Bessie was rearing up, stretching her neck to full length to be taller and Snowdrop was copying.  Within about 10 seconds Snowdrop decided it was best not to take her on and trundled off clucking to herself.  I imagine there was some very foul (fowl!) language being used if you could speak fluent chicken.

Apart from those few incidents so far so good.  The next hurdle is bedtime.  Hopefully the new girls will go off to bed without incident.  The ex-batts and Crazy usually go a bit earlier than them which could work in my favour.  Unless Crazy decides to sit up and annoy them instead of going to bed.  I will find out in an hour or so.

The bad news this week is that Daisy has been confirmed to actually be Davey.  He/She was seen strutting her stuff chasing the girls on the roof and there was no mistaking him for a boy.  It's good in one way because it evens up the balance of males to females but its not good because he is in an incestuous relationship with his twin sister May.  So no doubt any egg laying attempts will be a disaster.  No change there then!