I have had a day off today to try to make some inroads into the work that needs doing in the garden. Usually I have a companion while I’m working, Sherri the chicken! Today, unusually, Sherri was having a quiet day sitting in a dirt bath that she’d made for herself beneath one of the pear trees so Milly and Terri decided to fill her shoes for some reason best known to themselves. They’ve followed me around all afternoon, watching my every move and waiting for me to uncover a worm or other tasty morsel. It is really most unusual because they don’t normally get very close to me at all.

Terri (the white one at the back) is sometimes known as meathead because she’s right at the bottom of the pecking order of the hens and so she gets picked on from time to time. Milly is usually her tormentor but sometimes Molly puts the boot in too (or should I say beak). Poor old Terri now has a very tatty comb and often has no feathers on her head because of this. It’s weird because as soon as they start to pick on her, she just prostrates herself on the floor and lets them give her a hard time. I can’t understand why she doesn’t fight back but she just takes it. Last year, David rescued her one day when they’d gashed open her head so badly we thought she might not survive. It always happens in the spring, for the rest of the year she’s just one of the pack with the others.

It always surprises me that despite her bullying, she still wants to associate with the rest of the hens and it’s Sherri who is the loner of the four. So you can always see Terri trotting around behind Milly even though Milly is really horrible to her.

Milly is a truly beautiful hen. I just love the petrol sheen of her feathers, especially when the sun shines on them. She is the top dog of the group, no-one gets the better of her and no-one gets the morsels of food she wants. They all just acquiesce to her superior status and let her get away with snatching stuff from them. She’s a terrible bully though and of all the hens she lays fewer eggs than the rest too.

I’ve been planting out summer bedding plants in tubs for the patio and have come across lots of snails both in the bedding trays and on the plant pots. The hens love snails and because they love snails I love them. The garden here used to be absolutely chock full of snails that would come out at night or when it rained and decimate the plants but since we’ve had the hens I don’t have any problem with snails at all. On the odd occasion that I find one these days, I just toss them in front of the hens and the hens run off with them clucking and chattering happily.

Late in the afternoon, Sherri decided the lure of someone working in the garden was too great to resist and she joined the rest of the hens poking their heads through the trellis watching me work on the patio, which is a hen-free-zone.

David has just called me to the window to see a starling bathing in the birdbath by the back door and as I stood up I could see three hens running up the garden chasing off a blackbird. They are so funny when they run. They put their wings out just like a child pretending to be an aeroplane, they run with outstretched wings and heads down. They really do make the most wonderful pets/companions. I can’t imagine a day when we won’t keep hens any more.