The Hens are continuing to live as one large flock.
Poppy, who is 9 and very nervous of her position, finally stopped being broody (after almost the whole of lockdown) and caused havoc for a while. All the settling and henpecking went on while she was broody, and she came out to a Brave New World. She had trouble establishing her place in it, and is only just settling now
Violent (previously known as Violet, but she turned out to be quite an aggressive little thing) has been broody for a couple of weeks. She's 2 years old, and thinks she should be top chook. She probably will be.
Katy, who is 9 and from the same hatch as Poppy and Gloria, is also broody.
We still have a few fights, and I chucked a bucket of water (which I happened to have in my hand) over one girl who decided to jump in on someone else's battle and got unnessarily nasty.
There's no grass to speak of. It's all scorched from the constant sun. I had expected to lose a couple of the older girls in the heat, despite taking precautions, but so far they are all still here. Nora, who is 10, unsteady on her feet and blind on one eye, laid an egg. It was shelless, and it caused her a bit of consternation, but it happened. She and Fleur (who is much younger and fitter) have halted their physical assualts and have actually been seen sunbathing near each other. They aren't friends, but it looks like they've worked out who's above who.
The night time arrangements continue to change. We no longer have 11 (of the 15) trying to get in one coop.
I've been leaving the coop doors open at night , as it's too hot to shut them all in.
I've been bathing the older girls to cool them down, and using a damp towel under the wings of the others. Lettuce, cucumber, frequent fresh water, frozen peas. Luckily their area has lots of dappled shade, and there's enough in enough places so thet don't have to sit together (unless they want to).
We're still having nest box issues, and having 2 broodies makes that worse. The noise to be let out (of their walk in run) now starts at 6am, which is an improvement on 5am. Some mornings they don't start creating until 7 or 7.30.
Our neighbours have children and a dog. The children and the dog make a bit of noise, nothing unreasonable or unexpected, and the Dad makes a bit of noise tinkering. I worry less about the noise of the Girls now, but we do still try and keep it down.
