Christmas Eve with the girls

As a Christmas Eve treat I gave the girls some scrambled egg today. This is their favourite treat and it was gone in no time at all. Pepper is still coming through her moult so I thought the protein would be good for her. For their Christmas Day treat they will be getting bio live natural yogurt, another favourite treat, as well as their greens and late afternoon corn.

I have noticed recently that Dotty has grown and is now bigger than Pepper. Pepper is still in the final stage of her moult and when I pick her up at bedtime I can feel her prickly pin feathers coming through. She is still very tatty at her tail end and when I pick her up she feels light compared to Dotty but she is eating well and is her usual happy self so I am sure it’s just the moult.

Pepper and Dotty

Pepper on the left is still tatty and smaller than Dotty. She used to be fatter but seems to have lost some of her fat at the moment. The moult seems to take a lot out of the girls which is why I like to keep their protein up a bit at this time.

Dotty has now laid three eggs since coming back into lay. Yesterday she was singing her egg song before going into the little coop so I now have no doubt that it is her laying.

Bluebell is moulting one feather at a time. Her new tail feathers have come in as her old ones are dropping out. She now has one remaining old and tatty tail feather that reminds me of the kind of feather we draw in illustrations with the bars spaced out.

Bluebell

You can see the top feather is an old feather and the ones underneath are her new feathers.

Honey on the left and Amber on the right

Lately whenever I am near the coop or the store cabinet the two little girls rush up to the coop roof. They seem to really like to get at eye level with me. In the same way when I am poop picking they jump to the outside perch as soon as I am near it. I talk to them and they look as though as they are listening intently! They seem to like this way of having close contact with me at their own comfort level.

I also gave the patio a clean up again today ready for Christmas Day even though I know the girls don’t really care about such things. Lately we have had so much constant rain and wind that even though the entire run is covered it still gets very wet. The edge by the veg plot is the worse and has been a quagmire of mud so I am digging and turning it over each day to drain the water.

The girls muddy feet make the patio area really muddy but I found trying to wash it doesn’t work as it just adds more water. My husband suggested sprinkling pine shavings from the coop on to it and brushing with my stiff rubber bristled broom so that the shavings soak up the mud and water. This really works. I brush the shavings over it then sweep them up and throw them away. I then brush the patio with a wire brush to remove any stuck on mud and sweep it off. It looks so much better. I did this at the weekend and again today. I am really hoping this wet weather will end soon and things will improve.

Now that we have two girls laying we have enough eggs for our Christmas day breakfast of scrambled egg with smoked salmon plus enough for bacon and egg sandwiches for the family when we have our Christmas get together. Thank you girls and a happy Christmas.