The Garden Girls are very vociferous to be let out but, when I open the door to their Run, they see the snow and then hang around in the doorway complain bitterly. It's as if they blame me personally for covering their free range area with something so horrible.
In previous years we had Lily, my lovely hybrid White Ranger (White Star), who hated the snow as much as the next hen, but didn't let it stop her going out and exploring. And because Lily was outside Doing Things, the others would come out and be Doing Things as well.
Sadly, Lily died last year (nothing to do with the snow). And none of the remaining Girls is brave enough to come out. Not even the loony Lotti.
The cold snap also put paid to any idea Lotti and Poppy ight have had about starting to lay. Even Roobarb stopped laying.
Instead they get spoiled by having hot porridge, and mealworms.
Tilda is put into her own run, adjacent to everyone else, during the day,and then brought into the kitchen at night. Because the other Girls aren't going out, I can't sneak her into the Big Run for a dust bath. Worried that she might be feeling unclean, I decided that I would brave the snow and make her her own personal dustbath. I had to dig out access to the shed to find a spare tub trug, and then I was grovelling around on the snowy ground trying to install it in the covered part of her run. I even went to the trouble of stealing some of the contents of the dust bath from the main run, so she would smell the same as the others. Then, still on my knees in the snow, I realised that she might have trouble stepping into the bath, so I cut an opening in the side.
Did she use it? Of course not.
Now the snow has thawed and the other are going out, I've snuck her into their run and shut her in for half an hour so she can dust bathe in there. She doesn't.
