The dishwasher failed again, so I'll have to phone them on Monday and see if we can get an engineer.
And tonight I went out to check on the chooks and found 3 of them uncooped. Two of them were huddled together on the mezzanine, and one was on her own on the arm of a garden chair.
I opened the purple cube, which has an Omlet opener on. I opened the back, and put my torch in. I walked back round into the run, picked up the lone chook, and showed her the steps. She refused to go up.
I went back into the house to put a coat on and to get my phone - and another torch. I came back out, and opened the orange coop door using the App. While I was waiting for it to open, I had a quick look in the red coop. This is the emergency coop, which no one uses unless they have to.
There were 4 girls inside. And not 4 girls from one coop. I assume that the coops closed before they were ready this evening.
When the App had finished opening the orange coop, I set it to opening the green one. The two Mezzanine girls had gone in to the orange coop by the time the door was fully open. The lone girl was raising the alarm (well done her!)
I left the lone girl to sirt herself out, and focussed on emptying the Red coop. Big Bird was at the back and first out. She was not happy. I carried her round to the green coop. None of this is as straightforward as it sounds, it's just not possible to walk directly between coops. There is a huge Jostaberry bush between the red and green coops, which doesn't affect the girls but it does mean I have to go ot of one door, walk round the outside, and go in another door.
Anyway, I put her on the steps so she could walk in, and she jumped off and hid under the coop. I guess she figureds that if her abductor wanted her to do something, she'd be best doing the opposite.
I left her under the coop, and went and got the other 3 girls, one at a time. In and out of the run, it's done my steo count a world of good. The screeching lone girl came up to the steps of the green coop, and I made way so she could get up. She didn't, instead she wandered off back to the cother coops. I realised she was probably trying to find the orange coop, so I walked over and shone the torch up the ladder to light her way. She climbed up. I set the door to close.
Big Bird was now outside, as in outside in the garden, so I rounded her up and attaenoted to catch her. She did not want to be caught. I had to wrestle her, for which she raised the alarm (well done her!), and I bundled her into the green coop. I shone the torch inside so she could see that some of her friends were in there, and then I activated the door closer. I changed the closing time on all coops.
I walked round locking the run doors, and then it occurred to me that I should just check one more time. I looked in the three overflow nestboxes, which are usually ignored by the girls especially when they all want to lay at the same time.
I decided I'd just pop her through the pop hole of the purple cube. She wasn't too keen on that idea - the hens were all over the place and not with their usual night time cliques. I probably should have put her in the orange cube, but at least one of her friends was in the purple cube.
My final headcount came to 15, so everyone was in somewhere.
Good job I checked.
