Chickens - mine are immortal!

So sorry to hear about Joanne, Trisha57, but pleased to hear that Sage is happy in her new home.

My dd1 and SiL acquired 3 ex battery hens last November - the poor things were in a dire state when they arrived, but settled well and regrew most of their feathers fairly quickly. They have a lovely coop which automatically locks their ‘bedroom’ on a timer, and SiL has attached a really good big run.

They are all very fond of them and the baby (16 months) loves watching them. The chooks are very fond of ‘white worms’, i.e. any leftover spaghetti, and on the odd occasion when we’ve eaten in the garden with them lately, they’re very good at hoovering up scraps dropped by 3 Gdcs.

They’re allowed out in the garden as long as dd or SiL is there to watch in case of Mr Fox.
I do worry though that dd can be a bit complacent about foxes, since it’s not too unusual around here (different area but I dare say much the same there) to see them in the daytime, and a fox could grab one so quickly. But ?.

Our chickens always loved spaghetti too, Witzend. I would chop up any leftovers with scissors and the GDs would feed it to them with much enthusiasm! Today we are dismantling the coop to give to the lady who adopted Sage. It is only a couple of years old and in good condition, so after a power wash and a dose of poultry sanitiser it should do her a good turn. There will be a bare patch in the garden to think about, but I know it will have plenty of good fertiliser on it! We dismantled our previous walk-in run two years ago when we only had 2 chickens left, and the grass that was laid over the site always grows much greener and quicker than the rest of the lawn! DGS calls it "the swishy swashy grass"!!!

mine loved wotsits and quavers, they used to pinch them off the kids (when they were little)

Sorry to hear about Joanne Trisha57, but I bet you gave her the best life.

Our neighbour 2 doors down keeps 4 chickens, and they often escape through the gate and wander up and down the street. We have people at least once a week knock on the door to say "Your chickens are out". I sometimes go out and herd them back - herding chickens is really difficult!

Lovely photos Trisha - they make me miss mine but no room in our tiny back garden.
I suppose our cockerels did make a noise but the neighbours were quite far away and they had cockerels too.