Moulting and perching at bedtime

Peaches and Barley were the last two girls to stop laying and start moulting. Whereas the other girls started earlier and had a slow moult, these two, are having a fast moult.

There are piles of feathers in the chicken shed each morning and drifts of feathers all around the run during the day.

Barley started a few weeks before Peaches and has had only one tail feather for a while. Peaches later start seems to have made her moult progress even more quickly and she has no tail feathers now.

Peaches has no tail

Barley looks a complete mess

What a state! The good thing is that the pins are already underneath so it shouldn’t be long before they are back to their former glory.

Meanwhile, last night I decided to try perching the new girls next to Pebbles at bedtime. I waited until it was dark when all the girls were settled and then lifted Freckles and Rusty from the cat box and placed them on the perch next to Pebbles.

They settled and made no attempt to move from the perch.

Freckles gets her balance on the perch

Once again Pebbles appears to looking at her as if wondering what on earth she is up to.

The little girls are settled for the night

I checked back ten minutes later and they were still settled so I locked them up for the night.

I went out this morning before the automatic door opened and when I opened the main door the three little girls were still on their perch. Freckles and Rusty had no problem jumping down from the perch with Pebbles a few seconds behind them.

This is a good start and now that I know that they can perch for the night I just need to teach them to go there by themselves. It may take a few nights but I am sure we will get there soon.