Introducing the ladies (and one sneaky guy)!

Chickens are great value on any block with any type of gardening philosophy. Besides being downright entertaining, they also perform many useful functions. They are weed killers, compost processors, fertilizer makers, food producers, and destroyers of valuable seedlings.

They each have unique personalities and contribute to the smooth running and well being of the garden. Well...anyone who has had chooks might disagree with that. They certainly find their way into every nook and cranny of the garden.

We have had five chooks in the last year. The first two were baby Silky- Eir and Beyla. Beyla died mysteriously after the arrival of Mercy, our third chook, a Rhode Island Red. Then Eir decided to be a rooster, so we had to ship him off to another garden. He is very happy now with his own flock of six hens.

We got ourself a brown Silky, Pappy, after Beyla died, but she was mercilessly hen pecked by the others that we decided to get another to smooth out the violence. Luckily enough, a black Silky with a brown top knot was available from our friend, John. It turned out that this chook, Yurei, was Pappy's mother, so they bonded instantly and the violence subsided. Having a final say in everything, Mercy plucked out Yurei's top knot on the first day.

Mercy is a character, the most vocal of all of the flock. She clucks when not being paid attention to, clucks away when let out of the run, clucks more when its time to go back in. Shes' also very unhappy with my garden designs and activities and can always be found reorganising whatever we've done in the yard.

Yurei is a shadow, she loves being under things, under bushes, building materials, tools, you name it. At the moment, she's fascinated with walking under the hose that hangs on the side of the run. I left a few coils looped loosely on the ground and she detours to walk through these on the way back in for the night.

Pappy got her name from an old movie about a prison escapee, Papillon. After her first day, we constantly found her outside of the run. I'd clipped her wing to stop flight, so we couldn't worko ut how she was escaping until, one day, Jelina saw her do a standing jump from the ground to the top of the run's fence. She doesn't need wings, she's a natural high jumper!

You can follow our chook adventures on our blog here - https://ligaya.online/critters/chooks/