Chilly Chickens And Other Cold Animals

We are all very bored with the snow and the cold now.

Red’s cock-a-doodle-doo is hoarse. The doodle-doo bit is almost missing. He sounds a bit pathetic – so I’m giving him a special vitamin tonic in his water to try and help.  Vera – the other cockerel has taken this opportunity to make fun of Red’s current lack of authority and is doing extra loud crowing just to rub it in.

Geoff the bantam cockerel isn’t participating in this competition, he hasn’t even bothered coming out of his hut for four days. He just struts his stuff indoors and crows from the comfort and warmth of his perch. I’ve been providing him with his own bowls of food and water inside the hut which he seems grateful for – yes I know  – room service for chickens – this is less like a farm than a five star animal hotel some days.

Hilary and Smiler the pigs are being equally demanding – only drinking if they are provided with lukewarm water from the farmhouse specially delivered by the individual bucket-load to their paddock. 

Sid and Nancy – the goats – are just pissed off. They can’t climb on their rocks and their wooden climbing platform because it’s too icy and they keep falling off. When I delivered their breakfast to them this morning, Sid momentarily lost his footing and I made the mistake of laughing at him (it was quite funny). He hates being laughed at – way too much male ego – so he dipped his horns and tried to engage me in a fight. I refused to allow him to butt me – my butt already has enough bruises from this (it’s his favourite game). So he resorted to trying to eat my rubber trousers instead. That’s punk-rocker-goats for you.  

Rose, Ivy and Frank (this year’s lambs) are daft enough to keep trying to get through the snow to the frozen grass below. As a consequence their faces are permanently framed with a frozen woolly ice halo.

The dogs have been very slow to get up in the morning, preferring to stay under their blankets (on our bed) for as long as possible. They do enjoy running around in the snow – but are happy to return to the kitchen where they vie for the position closest to the wood-burning stove. Mabel sits so close she gets too hot to touch and starts panting so hard I think she’s going to expire – but she won’t be moved.

The ducks however are a different matter. They are totally enjoying the weather. They can’t do much swimming on the pond as it’s frozen over, but they’ve a big washing up bowl of water as a temporary measure and despite the fact that it’s full of chunks of ice they happily spend the whole day in it. So it seems it really is nice weather for ducks.