Herding chickens

I think herding cats would have been easier.  It is with my Barn Cats, anyway.  I’ve still got a mother and five few-month-old chicks, which have been in the greenhouse in a coop for several weeks, but which they were outgrowing.  I wanted to move them into the bigger enclosed run and had just been waiting for milder weather.

Back in the summer, when I had all that complete misjudgement of bantam-monitoring, resulting in the hatching of more than two and a half dozen chicks, I ran out of coops and my gardener, Wince, made me a couple more.  But the traditional triangular one (it’s in 3D, what do you call that?  A cylinder, were it round, but it’s triangular, like a Toblerone without the segments) only had one point of entry, so if the chickens were at the other end, they were out of reach.  LT came with me, to chivvy them – but they are too tame to be frightened, not tame enough to come to me.  So it was a bit tricky and I got a bit hot and bothered.  I managed it in the end, though, let the mother out with the other bantams and penned up the young’uns.

After that, I wanted a mug of strong black coffee and a sit-down.

This evening, the mother went back in the big run with the others, so that’s all right.

The five Barneys are still doing very well, by the way and are actually looking rather fat.  It may just be that they have thick coats of glossy fur, of course.  Betty is the latest to befriend me and now weaves round my feet with her brothers Zain and Fred.  Barney is still cautious, but I catch him starring at me with his amber eyes.  He nearly trusts me.

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