My Chicken Promenade
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This is my Wilma. She is the only hen left from my original flock and is getting up there in years.
We've had so much lovely weather here in upstate New York this year that my girls have had far more time than they usually do in winter traipsing around my yard and garden. They have access to their favorite spots and activities: under the ancient rhododendron, sunning themselves safely in the pokeweed stalks, digging up any ground covering sedums I try to grow, and visiting the neighbors. How on earth do chickens spend their lives imprisoned in coops?
Two nights ago as dusk was well underway I made my evening trek to the coop to close the door to the chickens' spacious and secure run. I expected them all to be fast asleep on their roosting bars by this time, but Wilma emerged from under a Fat Albert Spruce as I walked past. I thought "This one must be getting a tad senile. She is old after all." She followed me for a bit but she seemed reluctant to go back into the coop. Even a handful of sunflower seeds strewn before her couldn't coax her to go any closer than 20 feet from the coop. I caught her (easily - she's old and it was dusk) and tried to carry her in, and that's when I understood. Those last 20 feet were covered with a solid sheet of dusk-frozen snow that she would not walk on.
Yesterday I placed this pathway of decaying bamboo screening across those twenty feet. My Lucy, a bantam Easter Egger, promptly strutted over it like it was a fashionable promenade, with Wilma right behind. I sure wish I had a picture of that!
The images are mine all mine. Thank you for reading!
Good looking bird! Is she a Wyandotte? If I were to buy more, I'd buy some wyandottes.
Yes a silver laced. I have a golden laced too, Barbara. Both are very sociable, good layers when they are of that age, and pioneers among their peers. I'd definitely raise that breed again.
Don't tell my wife, but I'm gonna pick up three or four if I see any at TSC this year...
I support that! Do they sell them by breed though? Mine has the chick breeds all together. Just a whole big box of multicolored fluff.
Yeah, in ours they have them separated by breed. Sometimes they have pullets, sometimes straight run. But last year they didn't have similarly colored birds together.
It's a great idea to make a path for your pals! 🐓🐔
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I love the bamboo catwalk! i can just see Wilma (the last of the original flock) "shake my little tush on the catwalk" - "I'm too sexy"
I love that image! They do some fine strutting those birds. I'm not going to be able to unsee that now!
LOL - a rooster might have been a more obvious candidate to strut on that catwalk, but why not ol' Wilma? I love the colorful personalities of banties. You capture them well.