Run, chicken, run

So today was eventful. In fact it wouldn’t be far removed from the most hilarious escapades of the Good Life (the 1970’s sit com).

I got down on site and had an amble down to the chickens. When I fed them I noticed that Daisy was not quite herself. She was opening and closing her beak and bobbing her head. I asked Geoff to have a look at her and the bobbing of the head can be a sign of worms. So we treated their water with cider vinegar and gave her a dose to help.

Whilst Cliff and Geoff were helping Daisy, Molly and Emily made a dash for the coop door. Those idiot birds slipped past the door and took great pleasure in mocking me as they ran away into the undergrowth. I had heard that Vorwerks are quite good flyers for chickens. That is an understatement. Molly launched herself and cleared the width of Bentley Mick’s plot and pelted behind Chris’s shed.

I sprinted after her and watched in disbelief as Molly snuck deep behind Chris’s shed and seeing as I couldn’t reach her, I left Chris keeping an eye on her whilst Cliff, Geoff and I attempted to catch Emily. That is a wily old bird – she led us all a merry dance all over the back of Phil’s plot.

I abandoned Cliff and Geoff to sprint back to check where Molly was. My next attempt to catch Molly spectacularly back fired when she managed to wriggle through the allotment boundary fence and headed out onto the park. Cliff came over to watch for Molly in case she came back through while I sprinted out of the allotment site and round to the park. I found her strutting proudly up and down by the hedge. Fortunately, there was no one else in the park while I chased the wretched bird up and down the path by the hedge yelling like a lunatic, “Come back here, you idiot bird! No don’t go that way! Please Molly, just let me catch you! Molly! Molly, no! Not the hedge! Please not in the hedge! Oh gosh, she is in the hedge!”

Geoff, Cliff and Chris occasionally shouted through the hedge to ask who had caught her. I hadn’t. There she was, hiding at the back of the hawthorn hedge looking smug. Cliff came round and with a long stick, chased her towards the hole in the hedge that Molly got out through originally. Miraculously, she popped back through the hedge and I pelted around to the allotment, leaving Cliff to make sure she didn’t try to get back into the park.

When I arrived panting back to the coop, I found Mick the Greek and Michael trying to heard her towards the coop. The idiot bird was now proudly stalking around on one of Mick’s raised beds. Between us, we managed to trap her between my coop and Mick’s and after several frantic attempts, got her safely. The loud undignified clucking she let out was unbelievable. I had a firm hold of her and proceeded to walk around and put her back in the coop, telling her off all the way.

When I put her down, I noticed that Emily was back in so someone must have managed to catch her whilst I was battling with Molly. Molly, still looking proud of herself, got herself a drink and went to have a natter with Holly.

Exhausted, I doubled checked that no other chickens had followed Molly and Emily’s bad example. When I counted ten chickens, I went home to collapse!