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Chicken of fate? - Update - 29/04/2012

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Had another merged free range after work last night, the chooks have been itching to get at my bell pepper and tomato plants. As the tomatoes had finished, I pulled the pot onto the patio, removed the cane and string, and let them have at it (anything to keep them away from my peppers!) and Xena, Olive and Bella all tucked in without any fuss at all.

 

Xena is learning to share!

 

I topped up her water with lifeguard last night, and she's got a mix of 2 cups mash, 1 cup pellets, and a handful of mealworms for her food today (spoilt, I know).

 

The squabbles are dying down between some of the older girls (2 more came into lay at the beginning of the week), though I'm still not confident to let her out with the silkies again. And she did her usual 'climb on top of mum when it's time for bed' routine. I popped her in her eglu, and shoved the disney princesses beachball on the nest box, and a minute later I could hear her scrabbling, she was trying to perch on it - unsuccessfully!

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I'm loving your story of Xena. I've never checked up on forum threads so much :) I just keep thinking how lucky she was to turn up on your doorstep. I've even been relaying her tale to my workmates and anyone else who will listen !!! She must definitely the most famous hen out there.I look forward to more updates :)

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Xena laid an egg today! Her first egg was on the day she arrived, and a softie, today she laid a slightly wonky MASSIVE egg, which you could be excused for thinking was a goose's ;)

 

She must have laid it one of the numerous times she went back into the eglu, but as a seasoned pro she took it in her stride and didn't ever spend more than a couple of minutes in there, and definitely no loud announcements.

 

 

Yay Xena!

 

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How exciting :) Here's to more hard shelled eggs xD

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Well, xena will have been with us 3 weeks today, we got 3 very large eggs from her last week (and I cracked one, and they're not double yolkers, just huuuuuuge!) I think she's almost ready to start being put in the cube run... But not quite. She will happily share treats when there's plenty around but once the food gets thinner on the ground she gets over greedy. She's not the biggest troublemaker of the flock though unless the silkies are around. I'm getting 3 eggs and 2 softies a day from the cube girls, so I think once the last one comes into lay I will bite the bullet. I have a couple of very xena-esque pictures to put up when I'm at the laptop (she looks a lot like a turkey at the mo!). She's moulting large feathers from her tail and main body, and some silkie wispy new ones are rippling in across her back - I'm so excited to see her with a full set. Unsure as to how much her comb has receeded, but I see her every day so I don't think I would notice anything tooo subtle. I shall update this post in a bit with her latest mugshots :)

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We got our 4th Xena egg today - true to form it was a whopper :)

 

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She's quite the poser!

 

Here she is with her off-again-on-again friend Bella, the 'off-again' periods demonstrated by Bella's lovely white plummage being stained with anti-pek spray from a few weeks ago... any tips on how to get rid of it would be appreciated :lol:

 

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