Chicken Run (The Great Escape)

I’ve been here two weeks now and things are very different.

TBD has been looking after me when he can but on Monday he had to go away for the day and TBM didn’t want me starving up in my bedroom all morning, so I had to go in the dining room until she came home.

Although it’s nice and warm in the dining room, I do hear things I find quite disturbing, like “ Shall we have chicken tonight” Gulp! Do they mean ME? It hasn’t been me yet but I don’t think I’m fat enough but if Abigail disappears then I shall be worried.

Abigail has still been the peck monster for most of the week and I have had to be encouraged to come down in a morning. I’d have a little breakfast and then she would start. I began to be aware of when it was coming, as her head would dropped slightly and this mad look would come into her eyes, then before you could blink, her beak would turn into an Exocet missile with a heat seeking device aimed right at my comb!

By Friday I was becoming much more confident and would come down by myself and today I’ve spent most of the morning in the run and no one has had to make me come down, or bang the stick at Abigail. In fact Abigail is starting to sulk a bit because I’m now showing her I’m not afraid.

I hope my feathers grow back soon. As I am a bit bare and this wind is cold, that’s partly why I still go upstairs at times because it’s warmer there.

I’m losing some of my small fluffy feathers now, which means I’ve gone into a moult, probably because of the stress of such a total change in my environment.

Still not laying any eggs but then we chickens don’t usually lay when we are moulting.

I’m now two weeks older than I would have been! And I’ve learned how to peck around in the ground and dust bathe, which I love. I can flap and stretch my wings and stand up straight. Life is good.