Naughty girls
When I went out to feed the chickens yesterday evening, I discovered the hens from the main house had decided to have a little fun and strip the feathers off each other
Or, more accurately, the Scots Grey hens had decided it was time to denude each other.
They have a good diet, they’re free of parasites and they’re definitely not bored.
But if one hen happens to peck another and pull a feather, then a huge orgy of feather pecking breaks out.
Last time it happened, it was the ISA Brown hens. This time around, it was the Scots Greys.
The two breeds run together, but they tend to work as different flocks even though they share the same space and problems that affect one may not affect the other.
To break the habit, I filled a large sprayer with gentian violet solution and sprayed all every hen’s exposed skin and the surrounding feathers before letting them out this morning.
They were not impressed, especially as they now look like a flock of purple-feathered granny chickens.
Scots Mauves…hues a clever boy then? (groan)
Got any photos of your flock of nannas?
I dunno, Stoney….
be warned: have you ever read the poem “when I am old I shall wear Purple…”?!!
Incidentally whilst hilarious in content said verse is personally very poignant to me; my sister introduced me to this poem when I was in my early teens. We used to chortle about the things we’d do to permissively annoy people, in our dotage….who could ever have imagined she’d be so tragically taken from us owing to a hypoglycaemic attack, at the unripe ‘old’ age of 42?
It goes to show, you never know quite what is around the corner….but don’t you worry, those things we discussed as cheeky young girls – if I make it; I’ll do them all; just for her.
I think that if a passing Google-bot scans ‘huge orgy’ under the heading of ‘naughty girls’ you might find that you have something of an increase in site traffic here!
All the best,
Hubert