Chickens are back, we went to Bury to fetch these hens, which was a right old game in itself! Obviously, following in the footsteps of Mrs Beeton, the objective is First Catch Your Hen. They sit there, looking as if they are all ready to go quietly
but they’re not. Not without a lot of flapping of wings. So once you’ve caught a chicken, the trick is to pin its wings. Here we were shown how it was done:
Right. Joanne got the hang of it, sort of:
though it can’t be said that either chicken nor chicken catcher seem totally at one with the current state of the world. Then there is the conundrum of how to box the hens.
So we end up with a couple of boxes of hens
which are ready to be driven up the A14 back to the Oak Tree, where we have hauled the chicken house up to be ready to welcome them.
Joanne with a box of hens ready to be unloaded at The Oak Tree
So we unload these guys, and they just sit there in the box and go ‘Yup, we got that, so now what?’
They did finally come out and start scratching about on the grass, which is the whole point of chickens. We will move them onto fresh grass every day
Hence the happy picture of our proud owner with her hens!