Great British Beak Off

Egg update:

37 eggs.  Average 2.1 per day.  £13.40 per egg.

Food

Ooh, pineapple!

Now that worming week is over, the girls are allowed treats again, so we're trying them on a variety of stuff.

I think they're starting to get used to me providing food.  When I come out the back door, they cluster round me and follow me around the garden.  Anything I drop, they try to eat.  When I'm hanging out the washing, if I drop a peg, they all run over and try to eat it.

This means they're up for trying most things.  If it turns out not to be food, they'll soon lose interest.

We tried them on green beans and mushrooms, not much interest there.

Fruit is popular.  We've tried melon, mango and Pineapple .  They're quite happy to strip any remaining flesh that we might have left on the rind.

Corn is a classic chicken treat and our girls love it.  I can see it will be a good tool for training them.  I found an old parmesan bowl in the cupboard and decided it would make a good corn bowl, as I can open and close it one-handed.  Using this, I've managed to get three of the girls to jump up on my lap to get some treats.  This includes Piper who was quite aggressive to begin with but is now becoming very tame.  She'll jump up on my lap and put up with being stroked and checked over, so long as there's corn on offer.

The only one who isn't jumping up for the corn is Big Boo.  She always seems a bit aloof and is now the only one who shies away from being touched.  She's happy to eat whatever scraps the other drop, but still doesn't trust me enough to come up.  Hopefully that'll come in time.

So far we've found two things that they really go mad for: rose petals and sardines .

There's a rose bush hanging over the fence from next door.  Every time a petal drops, they all run over and fight over it.

By far the favourite is sardines.  I emptied a tin onto the grass at the weekend and I've never seen them move so fast.  They cleared up the sardines in seconds and proceeded to strip out every blade of grass they touched.  Sardines are very good for egg production, due to the protein, calcium and omega-3 content, so this will become a regular treat for them now.

Great British Beak Off

Finally, our tribute to the Great British Bake Off: The Great British Beak Off.  It's starting to trend on the chicken-related Facebook groups and here's our entry for this week:

A pineapple shell stuffed with blanched potatoes, gammon and a baked eggshell crumb.

Prepared last night and in the fridge ready for judging this evening...