Honey’s escape

lately the little girls try to get out of the gate whenever I open it. It’s not so much about making an escape as just an interest in pecking at anything on the other side of the gate.

When I go in first thing  in the morning I try to block the gate with my feet or my hands but sometimes being small and speedy the little girls slip between my legs. So far they have only wandered down the steps on the other side of the gate having a peck around. I hold the gate open and they come back in.

In the mornings as soon as I am through the gate even while trying to keep the little girls in, Dotty is straight onto my shoulder. It is her way of greeting me every morning without fail. It’s now become an awkward manoeuvre of trying to keep the little girls in with Dotty on my back or shoulder.

One morning the little girls nipped out and Dotty was on my shoulder so I couldn’t risk going after them.  Luckily I just held the gate open and they wandered back in.

I always worry that if they flew off they wouldn’t know how to get back. Yesterday Honey got further than usual. I took them in a treat of tomato wedges. Honey grabbed a piece of tomato and in a split second ran out of the gate with it. Her only aim was to keep her bit of tomato and she shot down the path and onto the veg plot.

My heart did a flip and I wedged the gate open and grabbed the corn pot. I shook the corn and got her attention. She got a bit panicked about how to get back in and marched up and down the weld mesh fence at the end of the veg plot. I laid a trail of corn back to the gate and she forgot her tomato and followed the corn back in.

Thank goodness the corn is such a strong lure. So far a rattle of the corn has worked every time. It’s odd that the big girls have never shown an interest in stepping out yet the little girls always try to slip out.

The funny thing was that Honey wasn’t even aware of her adventure because her full attention was on her piece of tomato until the only thing better, corn, was on offer.

I have to be so careful with these little girls!

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2 Responses to Honey’s escape

  1. Jackie says:

    As mentioned yesterday chickens are not stupid they are more clever than we think they are .
    As the old saying goes : the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence…I wonder how long they have been planning that move while on their perch in the evening ?

    • Carol says:

      The funny things is it’s only the little girls, especially Honey, that do this. She never looks like she wants to escape though, she loves to peck at the pine shavings that have gone under the gate.

      It’s just that I worry that if something spooked her she might fly off. The rattle of the corn tub gets her back in pretty quickly though.

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