I was a tad miffed to say the least when, within days of agreeing a weekly sale of spare eggs, we had two hens taken by the mystery mountain poultry muncher.  A few days later two more pullets were put in the chicken coop to be picked on, not allowed any food (particularly lettuce or off milk), refused water and generally treated like the very inferior chickens they so obviously were.

The world of poultry hierarchy is often unfair!

I am not a namer of chickens – the only one I ever named was ‘Brave Chicken’.   She died after Bravely escaping and chasing dogs (I kid you not) to see if they were as brave as she – they were.  So now we have ‘the hens’, nameless happy egg laying girls.  Still I did feel a bit sorry for the new girls, never allowed to do anything really and squawked at repeatedly.  But now, a little over a month on, things in the hen house have improved remarkably.  Over the last week the new girls are ‘pinking up’ noticeably (a very technical term I thank you!).  Their combs and wattles are getting much pinker which can only mean one thing; egg laying is due to commence.

And yes this morning, an extra egg.  Alright it is only the size of half an egg, but still it is beautifully formed.  So hopefully in another few days we’ll be getting our full quota of eggs and BigD will be back to eating his daily boiled egg (he really is quite sweet and childlike at times) while the Scots can even vary their weekly order if they like!

I don’t know if its because they are now ‘women’ but the new girls have at last been accepted by the old girls and we again have four happy hens all doing their hen business (watching me weed mostly at the moment, waiting for grass to be thrown their way) together.  It really is quite heart warming.  Mostly though it means I can have lots of cake again!  And a Catalan Gardener full of cake is a happy Catalan Gardener!

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