A struggling chicken

This evening I managed to find some free tree trunks requiring pick up in Whitchurch. We bundled into the car and arrived at the lady’s house which was tucked away down a tiny bridle path next to a canal. It’s was incredibly beautiful. Most of the tree trunks were enormous and wouldn’t fit into the car but we found one that was the perfect size as well as a long thick branch. Both fully filled the back of the car!

We drove straight back to the allotment to drop off the tree trunk and branch. Borrowing a wheelbarrow, my husband lugged it down to our plot while I tried to sort out the pond pump which wasn’t working. With the breeze from today, it had blown the water from the fountain out of the pond dropping the water level below the pump’s minimum working depth. This was quickly fixed by filling the pond with a couple of watering cans of water.

As I was sorting out the pond, my husband went to check on the chickens. Rey had laid her egg finally. As he walked back to the shed, he looked in on Phil’s chickens. They still looked very bedraggled but one gave us immediate concern. She was huddled over on her own with her head down. We went in and picked her up. She felt quite cold and still had damp feathers. I had a cuddle for a few minutes to try and raise her body temperature. After several minutes, she didn’t seem to be picking up so I sent my husband off to get a chicken jumper from the shed. We got it on her and put her down. The cockerel freaked out, not knowing what it was. It was hilarious! We decided to sort out the tree trunks and then check back to see if the chicken was doing any better.

We walked back to the wheelbarrow and I showed my husband where the tree trunk needed to go. Between us we tipped it out of the wheelbarrow and rolled it into place. I then sat on it to try to sink it down into the soil to stabilise it. Unfortunately, the soil is absolutely sodden and all it did was squelch loudly and continue to rock backwards and forwards. Giving up, I left it and directed my husband in placing the large branch. As per usual with sorting out thinks like this, there were disagreements over the clarity of the instructions. Eventually, we got it into place after digging a whole to sink it into. Although we still need lots more logs and branches, it’s a good start!

Before we left, we went back to check on the chicken in Phil’s coop. It was exactly where we left it still huddled over but it was watching us more closely than before. We decided to leave the jumper on the bird overnight to see if that would help and message Phil to let him know one of his chickens wasn’t doing very well. Hopefully it will warm up overnight and be back to normal tomorrow.