11 March

Nothing is more bonding for hens than a shared dust bath.   It took Fly a long time to make friends with Brownie and Wilma.  She paid almost no attention to Wilma from the start, seeing at once Brownie was the only possible threat to her position, and even after she seemed to have got used to having the two of them tagging along after her I wouldn't have said they were friends, not really until the day I found Fly and Brownie fluffing themselves up together in a great hole they had created in the middle of our lawn, a hole that is still there today well over a year later.   When Mabel settled in for a dust bath in the coop yesterday and Wilma swaggered over, I think she was intending to oust Mabel from her spot, but Mabel looked up at Wilma unconcerned and carried on fluffing up her feathers, even as Wilma pushed in beside her.  Perhaps Wilma really did have friendly intentions but at any rate, Mabel accepted the gesture as a friendly gesture and the two hens before long were kicking dirt over each other with little purrs of contentment.  Before long, all four hens were dust bathing, Goldie in a little hole beside Wilma's, Maude making a third hole close by, and Mabel, having made peace with Wilma, heading over to have a second bath with Maude, the two of them fluffing and purring as the hole they made got deeper and deeper.