We let the chickens out for a little while yesterday to shake the mud off their feet and have some much needed alone time.
I think the girls, and Pecky, are all sick of this temperamental Spring weather. They’ve become even more aggressive with each other than usual, and poor Pecky is constantly under attack from four or five of the hens.
Joe is very upset with the hens and their bullying. He even wrote a story about it. He called it “Chickens Don’t Listen”.
He’s a boy after my own heart.
Unfortunately, when we let the chickens out, no one told them that the area of the kitchen garden with orange flags was off limits. I’m sure all the seeds we planted a few weeks ago are in their bellies.
While the girls were roaming, Ray and the boys took a few cuttings from our autumn olive, dipped the ends in rooting hormone and planted them between the trees in the swales.
We are trying to propagate more this year from cuttings. We are hoping at least a few of them will take as they are considered to be invasive.
At the end of the day, Ray cleaned the coop out and moved the girls out of the kitchen garden to start their long trek out to the tall grass and swales. We’ll move them daily since the ground is so soft and they are so excited to be on fresh vegetation.
Once they are out in the swales, maybe they will pick on eachother less.
We can only hope.
Picking, poking, pecking
The hens are bored…or mean
Poor Pecky’s scraggly feathers
Are the worst that we have seen
He doesn’t try to stop them
He runs around the pen
I’m waiting for the day
That bird gets his revenge
a pinch of homestead 
