Chicken wellies

[Icemaiden]

Dear friends,
It's us again. Sorry we've not posted for a while but it's not easy to get at Mum's computer...

We've been holed up in the greenhouse since Monday, as it's only 5' from our coop pophole and the ground outside is covered in horribly cold white stuff. Mum says we're a bit wimpy not walking around the run in chest high snow; it's all right for her- she's got wellies on & the snow's barely up to her ankles.

We're wondering if you know where we could get some platform wellies from, preferably feather-lined to keep our claws warm. Maybe then we'll go out in the snow...

Yours hopefully,
Nadia, Sophie, Holly, Tufty and Hope.

 

[Evie]

Dear lovely quintet,

It’s just wrong, isn’t it, that icy cold white stuff everywhere! I fully sympathise with you. At least mummy made sure you’re in the greenhouse so you’re sheltered from that horrible freezing cold wind or that would terribly mess up your feathers, you’d end up with goose bumps! This weather won’t last long, though, the white stuff will start thawing in a few days, and in the meantime I’m sure if you look really sweetly at mummy she’ll give you extra treats (works for me every time 17 )

As for platform wellies, I think you’ve found a niche market! Can’t advise as to where to buy them, but if you find some do please post a picture so I can show my lovely girls I’m a chamois frizzled poland so I’d need them to match my feather colour...

Now how about you explain to mummy the importance of having your own ipad with fibreoptic broadband so you can set up your own facebook page and twitter account? You never know, you may just be the next ‘grumpy cat’, except we chickens are much more interesting, of course! 08 Just make sure your location is well hidden, don’t want just anyone finding out about us exquisite girls 01

Have a clucking good weekend,


Frizzle

 

[chrismahon]

The pop-hole was opened as usual, but when we looked out we were on a strange 'white' planet- no way are we going outside to eat and drink, we'll just sit here and wait to arrive back home. Primrose bravely ventured outside but avoided the white stuff by flying in a long loop to touch down in the woodstore. It was several hours before she returned, but still with an empty crop. Anyway, it all worked out fine as the very next day when the pop-hole was opened we were back on the 'green' planet. Time to eat and drink and make up for the day lost.

Priscilla, Primrose, Portia and Prudence (the young TNN's)

 

[Hen-Gen]

You're all chicken! Sure it's been chilly but here there's only been an inch of snow at most. Been put off by the sudden appearance of Flubenvet in our pellets but not going hungry because of that. The idiot humanoid has run out of corn but you can't expect much from something that hasnt even got a preen gland. The occasional supermarket bag of spinach is much appreciated though Sag Aloo wonders whether there's an ulterior motive.

Love from the laying flock aka Sag Aloo, Korma, Passanda, Byriani, Vindaloo, Tindaloo, Pappadom, Paratha and our brother, Brinjal Bhaji.

PS
The eggs are now being collected in egg boxes rather than in an old mayonnaise tub. There's talk among some of the other birds that incubation is looming but we think that it's more a case of warming in an omelette pan rather than a couple of Polyhatches. The humanoid is planning on hatching some fresh menfolk which is OK by us because this incest thing is definitely unwholesome.

 

[rick]

Hi, Aerial here,
Our human has dropped his phone in the nestbox so taking the opportunity... Not really sure why i'm in here. I'll just sit on these legbar eggs for a while.
So this white stuff is everywhere then? Bonnie tried eating some if it yesterday but apparently it just tastes like cold water. We've got plenty of cold water!
Oh, whats that? Ooooo....
No, nothing happening.
Linden says he has found something tasty so i better check it out (you never know.)
Bye, keep safe all.

 

[bigyetiman]

Was somewhat scary here on Monday, as we looked out of the pop hole and were hurled backwards by a force 9 gale of icy wind, now no one wants that up whistling up your vent. Us 9 newbies looked at the 3 old uns, well they weren't a lot of help either didn't seem to know what was happening. Then OMG white stuff started appearing everywhere. Humans are supposed to be further up the pecking order so why cant they think of putting sides on the run or covering the whole garden. I mean we hear them by the coop/run discussing getting bits from B & Q to do just about everything, so surely that should be easy.
Anyway sent Emerald out on a scouting party, report not good, white stuff cold, wet and you sink into it, wellies are definitely needed. Quick discussion and as it was wet and frozen and we look too good to have feathers blowing about, I mean you can't go flashing your vent at anyone who happens to be passing, and we retired to the coop which is large and quite snug as our mum filled it with straw for us to ward off the chill and we must say we did have endless fun scrabbling about finding bits of corn and the odd insect or two and bits of winter greens that have been dropped.
If our human says to us once more "soon be spring" we feel a good peck may be needed as you have no idea when it will be and we will suss it long before you

 

[bigjim]

Like good girls, we've been laying our ovoids for the welly wearing tall chap to collect. This week he's been going work with them in his coat pockets, what an eejit. I heard one of them cracked but when he'd checked in on his old mum, she made pancakes for him. He cleared all that horrible stuff to one side and we've been given extra corn to counteract the icy winds. Can't wait till we can get out into his garden again.
Jo, meg, mable.

 

[Icemaiden]

Dear Joe, Meg and Mable,

Out of interest, what are these ovoid things that you mentioned?
I'm about 8 months old now & Mum keeps surreptitiously measuring the (lack of) gap between my pelvic bones when she picks me up for a cuddle. Any connection?

Yours mystifiedly (it's a word in our language..!),
Hope

 

[bigyetiman]

Yours mystifiedly. Ovoid things OMG they are what humans call eggs, and they are your bargaining chip. Once you get into this egg laying lark just watch your human she/he will go all stupid telling you how clever you are, what a clever girl. Thats when the fun starts if they upset you, you can withhold egg production. Plus you must lay the occasional soft egg, to the human eye it looks normal and they grab it in their not very delicate paws and you can smirk as it breaks. The odd strange shaped egg (remember not too odd it will be painful on way out) or with the odd lump or bump on it will also get them all excited.
Put a stop to this measuring your pelvic bones, how undignified, we will lay an egg when we are ready not before.
We got out into the garden yesterday, oh the joy of mucky puddles to drink from, so much more fun than a clean drinker

 

[Evie]

Dear all,

Good news, the white stuff is disappearing fast!! 17 08 Ok, so we live down south in mild Hertfordshire, but according to the weather chappies you should all be able to enjoy grass once more very soon! 17

Sooooo pleased this horrible cold weather is coming to an end! We’ve actually been outside in the garden for a short while today, whilst our run was being cleared of most of the straw that we sort of dug ourselves into over the past few days to keep warm (for the first time ever, straw was packed around the edges of our run as a warm insulator, in addition to the usual winter wind breaks), and I’m hoping we’ll never see it again, I much prefer our usual bedding, thank you very much. Still, it was useful, I’ll admit to that (insert grateful looking smiley here).

Good advice on the eggs, btw, give your humans the odd funny looking one and they’ll be quiet for hours searching the internet for reasons why, which invariable results in us getting more treats

Frizzle
PS: fresh puddles are always much nicer to drink of than our clean drinkers, there’s one particular puddle here with notes of earth worm and snail that leaves a beautiful vintage muddy finish on the palate

 

[Icemaiden]

Yay! We never thought we'd be so grateful for a muddy run. We promise not to complain about mud ever again - well at least not before tomorrow!
The nasty white stuff has almost gone & Mum's had to spend an hour cleaning up our defrosted poo 02

Dear Aerial, we could still use some wellies & we've heard that your human is good at drawing. Do you think he could put some designs on here for us to have a look at?

Yours hopefully,
Nadia, Sophie, Holly, Tufty and Hope.

 

[bigyetiman]

Sauvignon earthworm with just the hint of slug or mouldy leaf, or bit of mud at the bottom. Just such a wonderful bouquet of flavours for the palate. Goes well with insects, layers pellets, after greens.
We agree with the wellie design. We have noticed what badly designed feet humans have, absolutely useless for icy conditions. if they had nice splayed feet like us they could get about so much better.
Anyway must get back to eating grass and digging in all the soft dirt, and getting back to the compost heap.
Plus leaving the odd big soft poo by the back door, we know they love treading in it

 

[rick]

Nadia & co, You really mustn't give this human ideas. He's had us modeling all sots of get ups all afternoon!

 

[Icemaiden]

Oooh. Can we have more than one pair please Mum?

We like the spotty ones, but they need a bit of a platform (or maybe little snowshoe soles) to keep our undercarriages above the snow please.

In the mud though, the waders would work better. Otherwise we'll take a step, the wellies will stick in the mud & we'll fall flat on our faces in the mud.

That would NOT be funny!!! 02

 

[bigyetiman]

Just love the designs Rick. Think we would like a little heel on the wellies. Love the casual slips ons, great for a casual lounge in the sun or chilling in the coop. Definitely want them in more than one colour. Waders will make us look very efficient as we stride through the mud.
We girls think you should be designing hen tastic cards to sell to our hen obsessed owners, I am sure you can put a witty punchline under them.
PS do you do evening wear, for the hen about town ?

 

[rick]

Well, us Legbars certainly won't be posing in evening wear until he can do us more justice! Where are our Tufts and stylish eyebrows?
Maxi? You'll have to catch us first!
Mo, Ruby & Lulu
... No Linden! No tux!

 

[Marigold]

Hi everyone, five new members here. I'm Violet,

Here are Lily Leghorn and Iris, who is inclined to talk in a Scottish accent and go on about her Black Rock ancestors (although we all know she's just a RIRxBarred Plymouth Rock hybrid really.)

And here are Daisy and Rose.

Rose is the RIRxSussex Blacktail and Daisy is the Buff Barred.

Amazing day yesterday. We were all living happily in a big barn with lots of other pullets when we were caught by the humans, shoved into boxes and loaded into a spaceship. The spaceship was noisy and vibrated a lot, but eventually we arrived on a totally new planet. It has lots of space and is amazingly clean, not a spot of poo anywhere, so we soon intend to do something about that. There are several new objects to explore - we don't know what the big green tub in the corner is for, but we're working on it.

I was the first one to notice that the human's shoes were tied on with long yellow worms but they didn't taste very nice. I was also the first to find out how you could jump up on that long overhead bar and look out into the garden - amazing view.
The food here is really excellent. For tea yesterday and breakfast today, we got a lovely plateful of warm damp mash with sunflower seeds and corn, topped off with a crunchy gratin of mealworms, and lightly seasoned with Flubenvet. Delicious, we all tucked in. We've only had Vermex before, so it was an interesting change.
When it got dark we all wondered what to do and where to go. The human came and showed us how to walk up a ramp and into the big green box. I did it all by myself and so did Rose, but she had to catch Daisy and Lily, and Iris couldn't seem to get the idea at all, kept on hiding under the ramp and then running away, but the human caught her in the end. Inside, we bumbled about for a long time, working out how to sleep on the bars above the ground, which we've never done before in the barn. Eventually we all got the hang of it except Lily who slept on the floor. I noticed there are two extra bedrooms in this box, but we don't know what they're for yet.
Being teenagers, all this new technology comes easily to us and we're glad the planet has decent wifi so we can keep in touch, using Tapatalk on our phone because its so easy to load pictures directly. We do wonder what we are here for, and what is our purpose in life, and we hope this forum will help us as we work on these existential questions.
Signing off for now, I've heard there are grapes for tea and as I'm the brightest of us I intend to be first to greet the human.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bigyetiman]

Well you all look lovely. Violet looks just like our head honcho Misty, we are passing this on as a kind of warning as Mum refers to her as Darth Vader with attitude.
Anything that looks worm like attached to human shoes tastes horrible, we have tried them all, brown, black, stripy all yuk.
Clever you sussing thinks out so quickly, humans get very excited about us doing that, and grapes are amazing far to good for humans to eat. If you see them approaching with green stuff, get ready to grab it as it will be tasty believe me.
Hope you have had a good day getting the run to a nice mucky state, humans just love cleaning mess up.
We have just had Flubenvet as well, as you say an interesting taste.

 

[rick]

Sounds like you've really landed on your feet there Violet! Enjoy discovering the delights of the bucket. Of course, we hens of the world know what its for though ours is now a poop bucket and not the fun it use to be (to be fair the human did make us an alternative.)
That Rose of yours reminds me of our old auntie Teabag - a mischievous one to be sure!
Spring is coming! Plant pots to raid!
Aerial

 

[Icemaiden]

So you all go to bed in the big green buckety thing? Funny- we have a yellow bucket, but the aubiose in it is always too pooey to sleep in, so we go into the big plastic caravan-type thing. (Don't let Dad hear us call it that- he gets his view of caravans from Jeremy Cluckson!)

Nice to meet you all. Lily looks like me back in November. A few dustbaths in damp soil & you'll soon find you blend in a bit more, don't worry :lol:

Your mash sounds nice. We didn't get a sniff of mash even when it snowed, & we've not had yoghurt for ages either. Anyone know the email address for Yeo Valley? We might have to send a begging letter...

Got to go, or I won't be first up for leftover boiled potatoes in the morning. Oh, the benefits of having veggie "parents"!

Night night,
Holly.