Pepper has been determinedly sitting on other people's eggs for a couple of weeks now. She would happily spend the whole day in the nest box. When the other eggs are laid though, I chuck her out.
She then squawks at me and sits tight on the run floor for a few minutes. Then when she realises the house door has been shut, she admits it's a fair cop and rushes to the feeders to tank up furiously on pellets and water. At this point, when I'm home, I let them out into their own (fenced) bit of the garden and she enjoys scratching and stuffing her beak in there with the others. She's such a little thing too and only laid for a few weeks before going on strike to go broody. Two of the older hens seem to have reached the Henopause so we aren't getting a whole lot of eggs just now!
Now we have Old and New girls laying eggs the egg-skelter looks decidedly odd! 
The very first Baby Egg turned out to be a double yolker. That reminded me that we had lots of doubles in the first season with the Rangers. Looks like more to come - no doubt they'll get bigger soon.
Ginger is the largest of the new 'black' chickens but is lighter in colour - even to the extent of a paler face - and has the most gorgeous outlined feathers. I think these blacks are a Rhode Island Red/Plymouth Rock cross but Ginger has more Rhodie genes expressed. We think she is younger than the other two - she has a paler comb and we don't think she's laying. Pepper and Nutmeg are. Don't look too closely - there's a ginger poo there too!
From the front she looks very like the red hens (apart from the baby comb!) and the red colouring goes right under her breast.
Nutty and Pep are quite dark on the backs with a lovely greenish sheen but Ginger shows markings on all her back feathers too. She's a real individual and is often perching when the others are chugging around. She does her own thing. She is more shy than the others who are now becoming very tame. They always assume you have food (why wouldn't you?)
Aunty Amber laid the one on the top left. She lays the smallest of the Big Girls' eggs. The little one top right was laid today and looks like a pigeon's egg! We know from experience they will get bigger and darker but they look so sweet when they first begin laying. Ahh!
Five relaxed together - a bit of dust-bathing - and Topaz on the left in the Sin Bin!
From front to back - here are Pepper, Nutmeg and Ginger.
This is the pen of Blacks that decided us. We chose suitable 'black' names on the way home, Jet, Ebony etc, but when we took them from their travelling boxes and they stood blinking in the weak East Yorkshire sun, they looked very varied and not entirely black so that the names didn't really suit. The one with the palest breast feathers begged to be called Ginger, the darkest became (Black) Pepper and the in betweeny became Nutmeg - so we ended up with Spice Girls rather than mysteriously Shakespearean Dark Ladies.
Sunshine today so the ladies decided to dig holes and make 'nests'. They dust bath in these, so in this weather there's a fair amount of mucky, damp soil hurled around the place.
The aim seems to be to get as much in between the feathers as possible so they do look fairly dirty when they've done. It all seems to shake off though and is evidently a very pleasurable experience. Eyes closed and all!
More 'nest' making. This heap of stuff was pulled out of a nest box that has been used by coal tits for several years. It's being moved because it's on a pole supporting next door's power line, which is being led underground now. There's blue baler twine in here along with all the dried grass.
Why, when I've just given them a lovely bowl of fresh water, another of hot mash and filled up their feeding pot, do they eat snow?
You know the way things shrink in the cold? (Yes you do!) This was the offering of our Garnet who usually lays a huge long torpedo shaped dark egg. This minute offering had nothing in but a membrane with a tiny smear of yolk.
They are still laying sporadically. It's their second winter as layers and we usually get 2 a day, sometimes 3 though we have one day without an egg at all. Maybe we should think of adding a couple of PoLs to the flock next spring?
Who kicked the soil off the vegetable bed and onto the path?
Ohh, Topaz loves gravel! It must be full of little crawly things to eat because she can't see a gravel path without wanting to scratch it all up. I thought my greenhouse windows had had it - the greenhouse is surrounded on 2 sides by gravel which flew in the air and cracked ominously as the chickens hurled it against the glass.
After the chickens and I had dug over the empty bed (and they had stuffed their crops with wiggly things) I dug out one of my compost bins and this lovely crumbly stuff is the result of a mixture of hemp bedding, chicken poo and vegetable peelings. Wonderful stuff! Thank you, ladies!
Ruby and Amber take a walk around the wildflower meadow which has been shorn a couple of times. They have a tendency to follow trousers around because you can often cadge something to eat! 
Himself was relaxing with the remains of a cuppa when Ruby decided to investigate.
Chickens apparently like tea!
Their 'job' for the day was to scratch up the thatch of moss that has formed in amongst the grasses and wild flowers. Amber (paler in colour) and Topaz however, thought there were better pickings in the borders. They might be right. Amber came up with a huge slug and was duly chased around the grass with it till she managed to get it down her neck. It took her longer to wipe her beak clean from the slug 'glue' than it did to demolish the morsel. You can just see her little bald bum - she's moulting at the moment.
This morning I decided to clear the rather weedy area where the pea wigwams had been. The chickens love garden clearance!
Amber wandered onto the border by the veg plot where there's a fair bit of couch grass to be removed. 
The grass has grown back in places on Chicken Field and fortunately for them (not for us!) the little area they play in has a blackcurrant bush - just behind the chair, and they can hardly wait for the fruits to start turning colour before they pinch them. It matters less now that we have the allotment which had 4 bushes, all un-chickened.
They love to rake around under the rose bush too, as it's shaded during the hottest part of the day. Topaz is under the Tayberry which is outside their little area but the branches reach across. They are surprisingly athletic when they want a tayberry!
I've finished my grass. Can I have yours?
How they love a good flap in the dirt! You can see the remains of another wallow hole by the damson tree, and there's yet another closer to the camera. Their lovely under-feathers are coated in soil and look grey and gritty instead of white and fluffy. Still, they did exactly the same yesterday, accompanied by that noise half way between a cat's purr and a frog's croak, that seems to indicate chicken bliss! They shake their feathers until the grit shakes out and they become lovely and pristine again. I'd rather have a bath!
Grass? What grass? Last year this area was the rank and overgrow part of the mini-meadow. It didn't take the chickens long to trash it! Considering that it has been 'resting' for a couple or three months, it still looks devastated. They don't seem to mind though. It's another scratching experience. 
After the horrible winter when snow filled their little patch or rain sluiced off the garden room to make a drip trench like a small river, the ground was in good fettle for a rummage yesterday. The chickens spent a couple of hours fossicking amongst the pebbles and beaking up the bits of grass (not many!) while I gave the house a really good do out.
Ruby, having a good fluff up after a big scratching session. The fact that the chickens hadn't been on there for a while meant that there were plenty of wiggly things to eat.
New perch. Can you smell fish?
