Improvements for the girls

I had a few jobs that I wanted to do in the chicken run today. First I removed the two shrubs in big pots as the girls have stripped them of most of the leaves in a week. I then planted the dog wood shrub that I bought yesterday. First I dug a hole twice as big as the pot and while doing this found some worms for the girls as I was digging deeper than usual. The girls enjoyed helping by eating worms and scratching through the freshly dug soil.

My next job was to move the dry dust bath as it’s on the patio area and makes everything there really dusty.

The dry dust bath in it’s original position

Once I had moved the dust bath, I had a bit of a spring clean and got rid of as much dust from the fence and storage cabinet as I could.

I emptied out the ash that I had been using and refilled it with sand. The reason for this is that I have read that ash is good for a dry dust bath as long as it stays dry but if it gets wet the lye may leach out and burn the chickens feathers making them ragged. As it’s now going outside and could get wet it’s safest to use sand and I also mixed in a cup of D.E.

The new shrub and repositioned dry dust bath

The dust bath is under the umbrella so that should help keep it dry even when the plastic cover is removed from the roof, that is if we ever have consistent dry weather.

The girls scratch around the new shrub

Once my jobs were completed I thought I would try the girls with the chicken toy again.

Bluebell pecking at the chicken toy

Bluebell is still the only one of the three to cotton on to the sunflower hearts in the toy. She can see them inside the yellow ball and some of her pecks reward her with some. Dotty watched cautiously but wasn’t brave enough to try and Pepper keeps well out of it’s way.

I went back later and it was in the garden area so one of the girls (probably Bluebell) had rolled it and I am sure there are less seeds in it now.

I have just been out to the girls again and found that they had scratched the soil from the roots of the new shrub. I should have realized that damp loose soil would be too tempting for scratching in. I have now put a ring of cobble stones over the roots.

The new shrub now has a ring of stones around it

I should know better by now, I had forgotten how the girls scratch at the roots of anything they can. I am hoping this will offer protection while the plant gets established.