The five amigos move up to the patio area as it gets near to bedtime. They also seem to like to get a bit higher up than floor level.
The five amigos on top of the little coop
Marmite and Spangle on the perch outside the chicken shed
Smoke is dust bathing in the shavings
Marmite perches and Vanilla is about to jump up
At this stage they do a lot of jumping up to the perch and then back down. They like to scratch in the shavings and Smoke was dust bathing. The silky girls and Blue also used to do this. I think it’s because at the breeders they were on shavings so learned to dust bath in shavings first.
They soon cottoned on to dust bathing in dirt in the run which is much more useful.
After the pop hole had closed I checked in again and the five amigos were settled in their corner. I think one evening they will suddenly get it, that they can stay on the perch, at bedtime.
Once again Ebony and Flame were in but Speckles was outside on her own. Tonight I will chase her down before the pop hole closes and see if I can get her to start going in with the other girls. I am surprised that she chooses to stay out on her own. What a daft girl she is!
Click here to see the history of my flock.
I am sure they will soon get the hang of it.
Spangle is very pretty.
I am sure they will. Smoke and Vanilla are my favourite colours but they are all pretty in their own way. If I had to give Vanilla a long name it would be – Vanilla Ice Cream With Honycombe Bits. Of course not really, but that is what she looks like to me. Being descriptive I just went with the Vanilla part. Smoke was a toss up between Smoke and Lavender.
I love the photo of Spangle mid sqawk!! :–0 xx
Me too! I nearly said that Spangle was being very vocal but in the end thought it spoke for itself. They are extremely vocal at bedtime and twitter away for some time even when settled in the corner.
They look great. I’m struggling to get used to their individual names at the moment!
Naming five at once takes a bit more getting used to. Richard doesn’t even remember them all yet. Marmite is the all black one which is probably easiest. Smoke is the all grey one. Vanilla is the mostly white one but she has little spots of honeycombe colour. Salmon has mostly salmon colour but some pretty spots too and Spangle was the most difficult to name. She has some white patches but on her back is what I think of as a spangle pattern (diamond shaped pattern) in the colours of the “old English spangle” sweets from my youth, which shows my age. She also reminds me of both tortoise shell and the little waders – turn stones. If you google them you will see how like them she is. It is a challenge to keep going with descriptive names as we have more and more birds over the years.