We’ve sold 5 of the Easter hens and 1 cockerel and we’ll be keeping the “Girlband” comprising Cagney and Lacey and Seven of Nine who are a very tight knit little gang. Lacey loves nothing better than to sit on your shoulder and get some fuss, Cagney gets worried when her girl is not within 4 inches and makes a plaintive cluck until we give her Lacey back again. Raising them in the Garage brooder initially has made them very very tame and we now can’t bear to part with them.

Mid summer brought more babies. Two little buff hens hatched 11th July and 1 porcelain cockerel on 12th July. My aunt was visiting so we decided to name the cockerel after my mum as he was hatched on her birthday. He became Rene and the girls naturally had to be Michelle and Yvette.

They are ready for rehoming now as Doris Day is laying again and although she will brood them at night they are really independent during the day.

The Easter boys have been moved to the rose garden and have been doing a magnificent job of weeding the shingle bed. A chorus of crowing greets me each morning but they soon settle down into their days work of eating everything they can find.

We have a new visitor Frank the juvenile pheasant who is surprisingly tame and seems to think he is a chicken and should be in with the boys. I’ll put a picture up of him when I get a moment.

Today they have begun the wheat harvest at last so I’m expecting some new mice friends courtesy of the Chief Mouser Mia!