The flock increases

Isnt Alex just the best photographer. She really has the touch and I wouldnt be surprised if this becomes her career later on as it is her passion.

A finish!! Hurray..

Another finish..I didnt have the heart to take this from under fat Denz but the rest of this pretty much looks like what you can see.

And this is our new chook..as yet unnamed..although it could be Scrunchie :)
Scrunchie(?) arrived in the dark of the evening. She came from the battery farm and unlike our pullets, she is about 15 months old and in the words of the farmer..had it!! But this was the challenge for me. I wanted one of these because I am sure that with TLC and nutrition she can lay like the others (Fully knowing that egg production for all chooks drops by 15% in their second year)
Anyway in the dark of the evening she looked actually okay, but in the light of the day the poor thing really looks shocking. her toenails are really long and curled over or missing..Her feathers are like an old feather duster from Great Nanas closet, but the absolute worst is her skin colour. She has this pale anemic look and dull pale eyes.  The other chooks are a bit bullying..Shelley in particular needs to pull her head in  (or should that be pullet her head in ?)..anyway being in a cage for all her life she is totally alrmed at the world but ventures out at times to look in horror at the sky, the sparrows, theinsects etc etc. 
I had this romantic idea of feeding her her own little pottle of porridge this morning and nursing her back to health, but she is do alrmed and out of sorts she doesnt want to know about food, or cuddles (which I have given..maybe the smell of me will make her more acceptable to the others) . My chooks in comparison to this sweetie are like chubby cheeky five year old children running around the yard picking up food rolling in the dust showing off their deep red wattles and alert dark brown eyes.
The only thing that I have seen that gives me hope is that she is vernturing out more (not just because Shelley is ramming her from behind) and her feet are touching the ground, coming into contact with real earth and the fresh air and the sunlight. Its just going to take time.

For the record battery farmers offer up these end of lays for a dollar or so and you ring your own boxs or bag and butterbing you have chicken for tea the next night. What scares me is the way in which some of these may meet their death.  Also for the record our new chook would like nothing better than to be back in the secure cage again....I never said chooks had great brains..a certain smartness yes but brainy..well the court is out.

The photo above is of Chrismas. Christmas is the leader of the pack. In leiu of a rooster she had taken it upon herself to lord it over the others. In the morning she gets up and wakes up the yard, and this is before she has layed eggs, infact we suspect she is telling the world everytime someone has produced!! At night, she is the last in the coop and once the last chook has gone in and is settled, Christmas walks around the coop a few times, jumps on the roof, checks that out (All good there), jumps down and walks around the whole perimeter jsut to make sure all is quiet and no danger lays in wait. it is the most funny thing to watch every night!!

Yesterday i offered a dozen of my beautiful happy eggs  to anyone who could present me with a live rhurbarb plant for my garden. The offer was taken up and the recipient said how great it was to be able to barter.  It wasgreat and what life is all bout.I mean how much more simple is it to swap something for another that you have grown and produced..isnt this the way life used to be!

happy bartering
love Cherry