Day 53.

Bush eggs: one. Nest box eggs: none. Feed hopper: full.

This place where we live (Pecka Pecka) is rather lovely. It is quite different from where I grew up (Otooky). I was one of nine hens raised in a small pen. Lots of different pens, with lots of different hens, all separated according to breed and colour (quite racist now when I think about it). A nice male person looked after us and made sure we were healthy and well fed but it was a strange existence.

We were born in a hotbox, we had no mother, no freedom, just waiting to be split up and sold off. It didn’t make for good lasting friendships. Still, I’ve really clucked in living here at Pecka Pecka. The Female Person chose me to join the tiny flock she had started. Until I came along she was buying chickens of fashion rather than chickens of substance – colourful, fanciful fowl with ugly hairdos, pathetic laying capabilities and the tendency to drop off the perch and die for no apparent reason other than severe inbreeding. I changed all that though. I was bred for elegance, egg-laying ability and excellent health. I haven’t let her down either (until very recently with a slight drop-off in egg production).

And here at Pecka Pecka I have freedom, friends and stability. I do miss the mother I never had though, and I suppose that is why I love being a grandmother and having young families around me.