Emerald and Speckles funny habits

I have talked a bit recently about some of Emerald’s funny habits. Emerald and Speckles are the two girls that have their funny habits firmly entrenched in their daily routine. They are the most predictable and interactive with me.

Yesterday I decided to try to catch this with photos to demonstrate.

When I go up the garden towards the chooks they all run down to the wire to greet me. Without fail Emerald always goes up the ladder as I reach this point so that she is on eye level with me.

Emerald always goes up the ladder as I get to this point

She then goes back down the ladder and follows me to the gate with the rest of the girls. As I open the gate Emerald always, without fail, jumps on to the inner gate.

Emerald jumps on the inner gate as I open the outer gate

She seems to like to get as close to me as she can and yet if I have any treats to drop into the run she then has to drop down again from the gate. She uses up extra energy running up and down the ladder and up and then down again from the gate but she does this every time. It’s become a very firm habit.

Once through the gate I give the girls some corn in the morning, some spinach mid morning, some apple in the afternoon and some sunflower hearts before bedtime. I give the corn at bedtime in the winter and in the morning in the summer because digesting the corn provides heat.

The flock share their morning corn

The flock share some spinach

That’s Emerald’s habits and this is Speckles habit. Almost every time I walk through the gate and always at corn and sunflower seeds time Speckles jumps on my back. She then makes her way up to my neck and chatters in my ear.

Speckles moves up my back to my shoulder

You can see the footprints where she makes it to about half way up my back and then moves upwards. I keep this cardigan as my “chicken cardigan” for this reason and my husband brushes me down when I leave the run.

She likes to move to my neck

This is especially nice when she has muddy feet and dirt drops inside the neck of my cardigan.

This is where she likes to be

I pause to turn to camera

I make my way to the store cabinet

I reach in for the seeds

It’s not the easiest of manoeuvres but I have got used to gently taking things from the cupboard with speckles on my shoulder.

Occasionally Peaches or Barley have jumped on my back then shoulder when I am at the cupboard and they then jumped from my shoulder to the shelf inside the cupboard. I had to quickly lift them down before they cause mayhem. Speckles has never done this though, she stays on my shoulder until I stoop down so that she can safely jump down.

If I don’t stoop down she will fly down and I am always afraid she will crash into something and hurt herself so I always crouch down to allow her to jump down safely. Then I can throw out some seeds.

This routine takes place every day without fail. Peaches and Barley also jump on me but it is at random and is usually when I am poop picking the run or bent over looking in a nest box. They don’t do this every day like Speckles does. Speckles, however, only does this as I walk through the gate. It’s a bit like a greeting.

She does this many times a day. She wouldn’t bother if I just popped in when she was having a dust bath or having some turf but if she is near the patio area she always does it and without fail she does this first thing in the morning and last thing before bedtime.

They do make me smile with their funny little ways and they are such creatures of habit.