22 January

As soon as you put a chicken in a box, she will go quiet, no matter how vigorous a protest she puts up when she is put into it.  I had noticed Wilma was missing feathers from around her vent so made an appointment for her with our local vet.  She made a few quiet comments when I picked up the box, replied occasionally when I spoke to her in her box in the car,  made some worried sounds while we waited to see the vet, and spoke politely to the vet herself when she was placed on the examining table, but was a lot quieter than usual, certainly a lot quieter than she was when she was squawking about being put in the box in the first place.  The vet commented on how well behaved she was as she submitted to her inspection, but it didn't take too much of an inspection to discover the problem which I am not photographing because no one wants to feel as itchy as I did when the mites were pointed out to me.  Mites!  I am changing the subject.  It is evening now, and I can hear a tui still sending out some notes after it should be asleep.  I decided to have one last look at the hens to check out tonight’s sleeping arrangements, and had to run back to the house for a torch when I could only see the three little hens and no sign of Wilma at all.  I searched the whole coop without finding her, till I looked on the perch again and there she was, on the tree branch in the corner just behind the other three little hens, not quite touching (so sort of quarantined).  If you want to watch hens sleeping, don’t choose black hens.  And by now they were all awake again, peering down at me.  I wonder if they dream of me when they sleep.