Chicken Lickin'

Our first lot of chickens sadly died, I think from bird flu. One by one they started staggering about, and then, even the staggering ceased and they just sat on the spot looking at the ground. I then had to dispatch them, which was a very upsetting business. So when Anna, my wife, suggested getting some more, I wasn't keen. As usual she ground me down with the promise that if there was any dispatching to be done, she was head of dispatchments. The other thing that swung it was that all chickens are vaccinated now against bird flu. 

Anna was going to Thouars market on Friday to poultry purchase so I had a few days to get the coop and orchard chicken-ready; the door had warped and a few fencing panels needed adding. Amazingly, two years on, the electronic door we bought from China was still working with a set of new batteries. 

Anna produced a metal feeder she had bought for 50€. '50€!' I shrieked like a girl, 'what's wrong with the old one?'. The new one looks like a chicken guillotine...the chooks stand on a little platform, which raises a panel, allowing the birds to access the top quality, premium feed Anna also purchased. 

The man who sells chickens at Thouars market was on his congés, so not one to be disappointed Anna went to our nearest Gamm vert and payed three times as much for four birds, two whites (Sussex breed), one black and a grey...very attractive. 

'Aren't we supposed to start the chickens in the coop and let them settle?' I suggested, as Anna, like an impetuous child, ignoring my advice, tipped the cardboard box upside down tumbling the confused birds out. 

'Have they had their wings clipped?' I asked, sounding like a poultry expert.

'Yes, I think the man at Gamm vert said they had'. Anna lied.

The hens looked very disorientated, with all the orchard available to them they huddled together in a corner. Anna and I had a cup of tea and a Bakewell tart and watched Mr. Black, Mr. Pink, Mr. White and Mr. Blue acclimatising. It started getting dark and the chickens were making no sign of ascending the ramp to their penthouse. We looked at them...they looked at us. 

I got some garden canes and we tried corralling them towards the ramp that led to bed. The plan was that I would hem them into a corner and Anna would grab one, but at the last moment she bottled it and the chicken ran off. The canes weren't cutting the mustard, so I went and got the long swimming pool net used for scooping dead mice from the pool. This worked like a treat on the first couple; Anna would net them and I would extract them from the net and post them through the coop door. All that and in our p'jimmy-jams and dressing gowns too, gawd knows what our French neighbours must have thought.

The third chicken got wise to this and when we approached her with the net she took to the skies and landed in a very tall blackthorn hedge. On realising they could fly, the fourth one took to the hedge too. I gave Anna the most withering look I could muster ...'clipped wings?' I thought, but didn't say...she understood.

By now it was dark. A ladder was acquired and I fumbled around in the hedge effing and jeffing under my breath. If I was going to spend the night perched on top of a hedge, I wouldn't choose blackthorn, my arms were cut to ribbons, but I managed to grab the third. In the end, after much blood loss, it was decided the last chicken would have to take her chances with Br'er Fox. To her credit Anna was very apologetic that she had dismissed my initial suggestion of starting them in the henhouse. And after our Friday night bottle of Les Ormes all was forgiven. 

The next morning the fourth chicken was alive and well; its little head protruding from the top of the blackthorn. Daylight was the advantage we needed and managed to get her back into the enclosure. Wings were cut and the chickens are happy and well and, like a team of forensic police, combing the orchard. 

When we returned to Gamm vert to purchase some disinfectant powder for the henhouse, we noticed one solitary chicken in their enclosure. So we now have five chickens, Mr. Grey has joined the gang. They have even started laying and have learnt the bedtime drill: ramp, teeth, quick story and then bed.