Right – another quick query for the be-chickened amongst you. On Thursday we took delivery of two new chooks – they look rather like this – courtesy of the ever-delightful e as a birthing present (they were hatched at about the same time as the witchling, who, between you, me and the rest of th’inter, I often call Chicklet). We kept them in the run, wired in but with access to the chicken house, for the whole of Friday, with our other chooks out and about in the free-range bit (no house access, but a feeder and drinker outside, and regular checks courtesy of moi), so they could see each other but not engage in mortal combat, and come the evening, I had great fun chasing near-shadow-coloured chooks around the garden when they escaped put all the hens to bed in a calm and collected fashion, having spent half an hour crawling around in the run, trying to encourage the Araucanas back into the damn house, having bonded most agreeably with the new arrivals myself. (That last bit? About the bonding? Complete porkies. The poor creatures are terrified of me; I suppose I am used to our others, with whom we’ve spent a lot of time, while these birds flap about as soon as I get near them.)

Anyway, they spent yesterday all together in the run (we aren’t letting the new arrivals out into the wider chicken area yet, because we want to make sure they know where home is, so to speak), because we had to go out and didn’t want to just let them out and hope for the best; I don’t know that it went very well. The Araucanas made it in at night, and were sitting on the floor of the henhouse when Quercus went to shut them up in the evening; this morning, I’ve let our old hands out, but the Araucanas won’t even shift into the run from the house. Any attempt to encourage them just gets them distressed, and, as Quercus is out on an emergency Chrimbly shopping run (every year he says he’ll be more organised, and every year, somehow, it fails; I tell him that I don’t mind what he gets me but it cuts no ice – I even offer suggestions when asked, yet still, here he is, panicking again, bless his little holey socks), I’m flying solo on handling them. For now, I’ve left them in the house, armed with some feed and a separate drink of water, and our other chooks are out pecking around in their free-range bit. But I don’t know what to do – is there any way to encourage the Araucanas out? Or should I just wait a bit? It doesn’t look like the others are accepting them particularly well, and I think there are small drops of blood (!) on one of the shelfy-sitty-bits in the house, which doesn’t bode well. I also need to find a way to get the Araucanas out into the run today as I want to clean the house out; any suggestions on how to do so without terrifying the poor birds would be most appreciated. My first thought was just to catch them and move them bodily, but they are very flappy, and to catch them I have to have the big door of the henhouse open, which scares me somewhat – the last thing I want is for them to actually escape!

Hens. What can you do with ‘em? (No. Really. What?)