On dry or sunny or warmer days, I physically *put* her outside now. Sometimes she goes off for a nibble of grass. She ususally comes and stands by the back door, beak against the glass, waiting to be let back in. If the door is left open, she just comes back in.
Where possible, I take her down to the covered run, stand her in the dustbath, and shut the entrance so the other Girls can't get in. When I see her back by the run door, I go and get her.
If the weather is OK after her dustbath, I stand her just outside the run. She then has a number of options. she can :
- (a) walk down the path and come back into the house
- (b) go and stand by the girls paddock area, in which case I put her in there with the others or
- (c) amble around the "lawn" free of risk of getting molested by the others, coming back to the house when she pleases
A couple of times now she has gone for option (b). Each time, I put her in the paddock - or open the gate so she can walk herself in - I watch to for a moment to make sure she's OK. Usually she gets a bit of a pecking; usually it's just hen-pecking, not obvious bullying.
Today was one of the days where she decided she wanted to go in with everyone else after her enforced dust bath. A little later I realised it was pouring with rain, and I could see that everyone else had moved into the shelter of the covered run.
I rushed out, expecting to find Tilda cowering under a bush somewhere. I couldn't find her. In the end, I looked in the covered run and found her in with the other. Not only that but she wasn't hiding under one of the benches, which is her usual safe place.
Later still the rain had stopped, and Tilda had come out of the run with the others. She was sitting underneath a shrub - another safe place - and seemed OK.
So, I'll leave her out there until later.
