It's been a while

We're definitely past the original mission to document the process of our adoption into the flock. The girls all loved us before we even went to Tasmania, and we've now been back for a month and a half. 

It's safe to say the mission was a complete success, in fact, it far exceeded any of my highest expectations. Whenever we open our front door they come running from anywhere in the yard to see us, mostly just to see if we have treats, but I like to pretend otherwise. Lumi has also started hanging out on the stairs outside our kitchen window when we're in the kitchen. Lumi is by far the most attached, probably because she is the greediest. Whenever I get home from work she sprints over to me. Walking anywhere, while I'm holding anything, is difficult because Lumi is all around my legs, at all times. It's so adorable. 

I'm hoping to use this space more for recording random observations or hilarious stories, which would be a nice way to store memories. 

Chicken Tree Loppers Inc.

Robert: they cut the banana tree down
Me: was it that badly damaged? (thinking Robert's parents had over reacted about the chickens eating the banana tree) 
Robert: no. The chickens cut it down. 

He then sent me these pictures. 

They gnawed through a tree enough for it to fall over! That's an impressive combination of boredom and dedication. The core of plantain trees are actually edible by people too, Robert said it smelt amazing when he ripped the remains out of the coop. 

I love chickens, I couldn't ask for more hilarious pets. I bet they just stood around looking surprised after it happened.

Tasmania

We left the chickens under the supervision of the in-laws and went on a two night mini break to Hobart for the weekend. I was in desperate need of a break. Work has been awful, and my overall mood has suffered. The holiday was the exactly what I needed to recharge.

We flew into chilly Hobart at 10am and made our way to Moto Vecchia. We finally got to check out the cafe, it looked amazing. We had some drinks and a quick catch up with Mel. She very generously lent us her car so we could go be tourists until the end of the work day. We went somewhere new, which on our 5th trip to Hobart (my 6th to Tasmania) was an achievement. We went to Fern Tree, had some surprisingly nice typical pub food for lunch at the tavern, then started the short bush walk to Silver Falls. The walk was lovely, but the falls weren't overly impressive at about 4 metres tall.

 

That night we went to The Winston for dinner for some American style bar food. We shared some southern style wings and a pulled pork burger. The wings were excellent, though they might have needed a little more salt. The burger actually needed less meat on it, haha! The coleslaw was exceptional, we shall be trying to replicate that at home for sure.

Saturday morning we naturally went to Salamanca Markets. We had gypsy rolls again, quickly followed by some salmon sausages which were amazing! We shall definitely be ordering some online. We bought yet more hand carved wooden chopsticks (because apparently two people need at least 12 pairs of chopsticks), and a gorgeous wooden tea light holder which will look fantastic when we redecorate the living room.

Then we went to Lark Distillery and sampled some delicious whiskey before lunch. Then walked over to Grape for a cider and a mind-blowingly awesome soft shell crab salad. We wrote down all the ingredients we could identify and will be making that very shortly. Then to Jack Greene (about three doors down) for beer & lunch part two (chilli lime prawns: perfectly cooked, battered & flavoured).

Lark Distillery whiskey tasting tray

The amazing soft shell crab & sheep haloumi salad

Cider connoisseurs

Mel & Mitch picked us up and we drove out to the Willie Smith Apple Shed for more cider, this time next to a fire. The scenery on the drive was beautiful, and the venue itself was cozily rustic. Then back to their place for pizza. I am so jealous that we don't live near a pizza place like that.

Sunday was pretty lazy. A spot of pizza for breakfast - personal note: always oven leftover pizza rather than microwave it; followed by a trip to the Mt Nelson Station cafe for scones. They took 50 minutes to bring our order out, which was completely unacceptable, and we ended up being a bit late to the airport, but still in time to check in.

View from Mt Nelson

 


I think the highlight of my day Sunday was when I walked out of the garage door and Lumi was about to jump up to the roost, she looked over at me, and jumped down and sprinted to the front of the enclosure, closely followed by the other two girls who were already in bed. I think they missed us :). I know I missed them.

Lumi is feeling better

I spent a lot of time with the girls over the long weekend, trying to pay a lot of attention to Lumi's breathing and sneezing. She doesn't seem to be gurgling anymore which is a huge relief, and she is definitely sneezing less frequently, I'd say she's back to her normal amount. She's always sneezed more than any other chicken though. She's talking a bit more, the silent days really freaked me out, though she's still not back to normal yet.

I'm so relieved the liquid anti-inflammatories are finished, Lumi hated the syringe. Now we just need to administer one large tablet and a quarter of tablet, which she doesn't seem to hate quite as much. Grabbing her twice is better than 3 times.

She's starting to be affectionate, not just tolerant of our pats, which is quite exciting. As soon as I step into the enclosure she'll run up and start weaving against my legs as I try and walk, if she's not busy eating grass that is. It's so cute.

She is not tolerant of being locked in the coop all day, and ate a fist sized chunk of the banana tree in retaliatiom

We noticed this weekend just how highly strung Greta is. She was standing on Robert eating seeds and was trembling. I don't know how we haven't noticed this before, but now that we're looking for it, she shakes a lot when we're nearby. She runs up to us, stands next to us, or on us (all voluntarily) and is just trembling, it's incredibly strange.

First vet trip, plus frolicking

Lumi did really well at the vet yesterday, she was far less of a handful than Agnes & Ripley ever were. She wasn't too scared being away from the other two, who apparently cried out the entire time we were gone with Lumi.

When it was just A&R, the other always came to keep the sick one company, but it just seemed ridiculous to bring three chickens to the vet when only one was sick. We thought leaving two behind would keep them calm, and that the sick chicken would be kept company by us, problem solved. Apparently not. Maybe they'll be calmer when we go next Thursday. I must say that if she had to get sick, I couldn't be gladder it was after she trusted us, I can't even imagine how horrific it would have been if it was while she still didn't like us.

The vet didn't find anything particularly worrying, but respiratory problems in birds can escalate quickly. She'll be on one week of antibiotics and a few days of anti-inflammatories to make sure nothing gets caught in her airway. If this doesn't work then they might try and put a probe down her throat to see what's going on, I really, really hope it doesn't come to that.

 

On a happier note, we let all the chickens out into the main yard for a supervised adventure yesterday morning. Lumi had crawled under the mesh before we'd even finished raising it. Harriet scurried under it once it was propped up, it was her first adventure outside the enclosure! She can't jump over the mesh like the other two can. Greta required seeds to bribe her under the mesh, and she didn't stop making her weird noise the entire time she was out, not sure why she was so wary, she's escaped many times before. Over half an hour they romped through the grass & clover and eventually onto the herbs, then they had to go back. Lumi spent the rest of the afternoon jumping over, and wriggling under the mesh. Greta jumped over on the last escape too. They are quite the handful.

 I noticed Lumi outside (for about the fourth time) and went outside, picked her up, carried her through the shed and put her down. Though what I didn't realise what that I'd put her down right next to her escape point because within 1 second of touching the ground she was already worming her way under the fence again. I lost it, it was hilariously cute. We then pinned that section down too.

I just don't understand why they can't free range all the time. The enclosure isn't working, they have almost destroyed the grass in that area, and they annihilated the herb garden within the first two weeks. It would be much easier to fence off the special plants and vegetable garden like before. Then the chickens could do whatever they like, Robert's parents wouldn't get upset and yell at us about the chickens escaping, and we wouldn't have to run outside and "fix" the "problem". Everyone would be happy. The current situation is dumb.

First illness

Lumi chicken has been sneezing for a few weeks now, a bit more regularly than what would be considered 'normal'. Today she has apparently upgraded to sounding a little gurgly when breathing. However she is still running around and being as greedy and hungry as normal, and had even jumped the fence four times by 9am. No discharge from beak or nose, not lethargic, nor any normal bad sign. Robert called the vet to make an appointment, who upon hearing all of the above said it doesn't sound serious, but it'd be best to bring her in just in case. So now she has an appointment tomorrow afternoon.

Naturally, I am horrendously scarred from the last two vet trips. This has brought up all the horrible memories from 7 months ago. I'm scared, and panicky for no sensible reason (since she is most likely fine or only in need of a course of antibiotics). Most of all, this rush of feelings has just made me sadder than normal, especially after almost no sleep last night. I miss them so much, every day.

I'm sure Lumi will be fine, not that that knowledge helps dull the worry.

More eggs

I looked at Greta on Saturday morning and said to Robert, "that looks like an 'I've got an egg' walk", and sure enough, half an hour later the 'where shall I lay process' started. We'd put the fake egg back into the nesting box to see if we could convince Lumi she'd rather lay in the box rather than on the ground, but it turned out really useful for Greta.

She was in and out of the two boxes, and was piling up straw on her back like a champ. This is apparently some sort of genetically triggered behaviour that humans are not supposed to understand. She eventually, with a lot less drama than Lumi created, pooped out a stark white egg.

y u do dis?

The best part is that after watching Greta lay in the nesting box, Lumi has laid all eggs since in the nesting box.

Greta had quite the audience for the intial prepping, though we left her alone for the actual egg laying. When she first started in the smaller right box she kept shuffling around and kicking the fake egg out of the way, I thought maybe it was uncomfortable for her. She let me reach into the box and take the fake egg out from under her. I was so surprised, I kept expecting her to go nuts about my proximity. I moved the egg into the right side of the large box. Which is where she moved to immediately after I moved the egg. Clearly I don't know anything about egg laying requirements.

Greta has lost all inhibitors about jumping up on us for treats. She is all over us almost as much as Lumi. I don't believe it's possible for any chicken to be more vigorous in reaching for treats than Lumi, she is ruthless. I think eventually I'll be able to convince Greta to jump on my arm, though Lumi doesn't seem like much of a jumper.

Greta thaws

On Saturday Greta stopped communicating solely in levels of 'no'. She has started trailing us around the enclosure wanting treats, and allowing pats. She was eating seeds out of Robert's hand and he started patting her and she just kept eating, when normally she'd move away and come back at a different angle. Yesterday afternoon she jumped up on the seat next to Robert and put one foot on him to reach some seeds, we couldn't convince her to stand on him entirely, but just one foot is incredible. In about 6 weeks she's gone through the distinct stages of being terrified of us, to not liking us, to being indifferent, to liking us. It's really satisfying that through persistence we've earned her trust.

"Yes, I will have treats"

They all love to sun themselves now, of a morning they'll just flop on the ground on their side and stretch a wing and foot out. Greta & Lumi seem to have learnt this behaviour from Harriet. Yesterday Harriet was sunning herself on the edge of the little step, her back to the edge and she stretched so much that she fell off. She basically rolled off onto the ground on her back, then jumped up, squeaked, and looked surprised. The drop was only about 1 inch onto grass, so she wasn't hurt, but it was the most adorable thing I have ever seen.

Cruising along

Friday morning was full of escapes. I was baking a wedding cake when I heard Lumi whinging at the top of her lungs, looked out the window to see Greta standing in front of the shed. This was not ideal since I was home alone. Greta does not permit touching, and she is fast. Whenever I'd lift up the mesh to try and coax Greta back in Lumi would crawl out through the gap and then I'd have two chickens to chase. After much Benny Hill-ing I got them both back in. Then Lumi decided it was time to lay. Can't lay in the coop, oh no no no. So she was under the back mesh and behind the coop in seconds. That was great. I put them all into the coop until she laid to solve the problem. She can be a little high maintenance.

We had our first weekend away from the girls last weekend, it was weird not spending time with them. Luckily this week I've been finishing work early & starting late on a variety of days which has increased the amount of time I can spend with them to make up for it.

This morning I had a whole extra hour before going to work, so I took some strawberries out to Greta (the other two don't like them). However, they were all far more interested in my white nail polish. Lumi was quite convinced it was some sort of tasty treat and was all over my lap trying to bite my nails. Even Harriet jumped up next to me to have a look. Greta however, after an initial look-see, just wanted the strawberries. She doesn't seem to radiate so much indifference these days, perhaps about the same amount as Harriet.

"Screw your chicken selfie, those nails are fabulous"

However, Lumi actually likes us now! The Greed is strong in that one. She trails around behind us all over the enclosure & coop, runs over to the fence when we walk out the door to visit them, and trails us to the fence when we leave the enclosure. One of my favourite new behavioural traits is when I bring the clean water container into the enclosure she runs over and stands on my feet in order to drink from the dish. I don't even know how to process so much cute.

It's been really nice forging new friendships with Lumi, Harriet & Greta. It's hard work, and we still have a long, long way to go with the latter two, but it'll be worth it.

A few times over the weekend I thought 'I miss the chickens', and then I realised that seemed silly considering 'missing' these girls must equal about 1% of the feeling of how much I miss Agnes & Ripley every single day. There are no words to describe how much I still miss them, an anguished howl of pure pain (like in movies) would probably be close to expressing how I feel, even after 6.5 months.

"Inside? Yes that is where I should be"

 Looking at this healing process in an objective way has been interesting. I'm actually able to look through the old photos and remember all the hilarious & cute times that I snapped pictures of with laughter, not tears (mostly). I'm glad we have the new girls, but they're not helping in any way that I initially expected. They're not filling the gaping hole in my heart, and I'm starting to realise that nothing ever will, and that's ok, I believe that might even be normal. Eventually they'll forge their way into what remains :). They don't provide the comfort I seek for the loss of A&R, however, they do provide comfort from general daily woes and upsets, and I enjoy spending time with them because of who they are, not because I'm trying to replace lost activities.

"This diagonal surface is most comfortable for a nap"

I miss their little faces so much.

Worms & eggs

Saturday 10th. After 5 days of only seeing the girls for about 2 minutes a day I felt a bribe of worms was in order. Pet City only had gigantic meal worms, at $15 for 50g! Ridiculous, we really need to attempt our own worm colony.

Lumi and Harriet jump all over us for the worms now so I'm starting the process of training them to jump onto our arms. I believe they now understand us tapping on surfaces means "jump up", but naturally, they do whatever they want. It's just a matter of continuing to show them we're not going to hurt them and them being impatient enough to jump for the treat. 

many worms. much flapping. wow

Greta takes at least two minutes to eat a single worm, and she can only achieve that because we literally hold Lumi & Harriet back. Because the only thing better than a meal worm, is a meal worm stolen from another chicken. It really was a lot of fun with the bigger worms, the girls really enjoyed them, so much flapping, twisting, jumping and thievery. The most epic theft was when Harriet & Lumi were on my lap, Harriet stole a worm off Lumi and jumped onto the ground to run away, only Lumi was too quick and jumped directly onto Harriet. I'm pretty sure Lumi got the worm back. Harriet was fine.

Not my fault Lumi, you were too slow again

I got my first injury from Lumi on Sunday morning, it is actually my worst chicken related injury to date, there was quite a bit of blood. I was holding her and she got impatient and scrabbled at my leg to get down, only her claws are ridiculously sharp. Oops.

By mid morning Lumi decided it was time to lay. It was going to be her first time. She would jump up to the laying boxes, sit in them, arrange the straw just so, and would jump back down to the ground again. She put little pieces of straw on her back, not sure why, but Agnes used to find that helpful too. Up and down she went, whinging the entire time. Then she crawled under the mesh fence and jumped up onto the compost bin. All panic stations were then manned because she was only a short jump onto the property fence and potentially into the neighbour's yard (they have a dog). She looked so proud of herself standing on that bin too, she was successfully herded back into the pen. About 2 minutes later she wedged herself back under the mesh fence to nibble at the mint. We then locked all of them in the coop until Lumi was done. Unfortunately she laid on the ground, but at least it was in the coop, which is better than some random location. The egg was about the size of my thumb, so much effort for such a tiny egg. 

It'd been a long time since we'd witnessed the "where shall I lay" dilemma. It really is adorable. Ripley's dilemma inside the house when they were sick was probably the best. She wouldn't stop whingeing, so we let her out of the cage, she spent ages pacing on the couch, then jumping between the bed and Robert's lap, finally trying to wedge herself in a tiny gap in the bookshelf. We then realised she wanted to lay an egg, and put her back in the cage because there really wasn't any better place for her. Naturally I photographed the entire ordeal, because that's what you do when your loved one is having hilarious issues.

Pushing the boundaries

They are becoming naughtier. They're learning how far they can push us, for the record, quite far. I would let them have free reign of everything, for example, I would watch them eat the entire vegetable garden whilst squealing wildly at the cuteness and taking photos. Unfortunately said vegetable garden is not mine, and now they have a 3x3m square of grass to frolic in, rather than the entire property that Agnes & Ripley had.

Agnes deciding which baby chilli plants to eat

Yesterday Robert looked out the window to see Greta standing outside the shed grazing peacefully, as soon as Robert walked outside she immediately ran back to the mesh fence and waited to be let back in. She knew she wasn't allowed to be there. Adorable.

Another week

Well it's been another whole week, unfortunately a whole week of full time work. Even with finishing early I am only able to get home at 4:50pm. By that time Greta has successfully convinced Lumi & Harriet to go to bed too and they're normally preoccupied with flapping their wings wildly, hitting everyone around them whilst turning around on the perch and fighting over who sits where. During all this mayhem they let me give them pats while I talk to them.

Unimpressed about noone else being in bed, and my proximity

On Saturday Lumi surprised me with something new. The chickens & I were all sitting next to each other whilst they ate grass, after a while Lumi turned around and started pecking gently at my freckles and pulling gently at my arm hair, but not like she was trying to eat them. It was extremely strange, it was so light it was kind of like tiny chicken kisses. It was easily the cutest thing any of these guys have done so far. Her voluntarily touching me feels like a huge step forward in her trusting me. It feels like all this time that I spend sitting with them and talking to them will be worth it. I was so worried about getting adult chickens because they might not respond to anything and be completely indifferent to us until the end, but things like this give me confidence that that won't happen.

Harriet looking fabulous

Lumi's & Greta's personalities are starting to show quite strongly now, whilst Harriet's hasn't, maybe because the other two pick on her? Lumi is greedy, bossy and not the smartest of chickens; and Greta communicates in varying levels of 'no'. She always reminds me of the Little Britain travel agent skit "Computer says no". She'll voluntarily come over and eat sunflower seeds out of our hands but after she's eaten them all, she'll run away because we're 'too close'. She's full of contradictions like that, but I think she'll come around in the end.

"Pretty sure I don't like you enough to come closer"

The affection of birds is so extremely different to that of other animals. Saturday really highlighted that for me. All afternoon & evening I was ecstatic that Lumi had nibbled at my arm. In the evening some friends brought their dog to our party, that dog was insanely adorable, requiring pats from everyone, he was full of affection and loved everyone instantly, that's just how dogs are. And there I was, happy that my chicken had nibbled at my arm. When you look at it in stark comparison it's ridiculous, however, it still didn't lessen the progress Lumi had made, or how happy I was with whatever level of affection she was willing to provide.

Worms

We finally bought some meal worms on Friday. Naturally this resulted in additional progress in how much they like us :).

They don't quite understand that the worms come from a container, they believe the worms spawn in our hands, which is adorable. They now constantly come over to check if we have any.

I've started trying to convince them to jump onto the chair next to me to get the worms. From there it'll be a short step onto my lap. I have convinced Lumi to jump up once. She'll also stand on my feet or lean against my knees to get closer, which is also good progress.

I gave them cabbage Sunday morning, but they're not too keen on it, they don't seem to understand they need to bite it. It's a bit odd. So I played 'stuff of my chickens' with it instead, so Harriet and Lumi looked like they were wearing cabbage saddles, it was cute. They weren't even phased by me almost touching them, which was nice.

Today! Today there was real progress! Both Lumi and Harriet voluntarily stood on both of us to eat meal worms. We just sat down on the bench and ignored them whilst playing with the worms, it didnt even take a minute before they were both on the chair trying to reach, not long after they were standing on our legs. Wonderful, but scratchy.

Progressing smoothly

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday have all been fairly similar.

Sunday saw Greta finally trust us enough to start eating grapes from our fingers, well mostly she tries to snatch them and run, but will stay and eat them if we hold on tightly enough.

Lumi will now even jump for treats, the Greed is strong in this one. She has also taken to jumping up on the bench and will even let us sit next to her, though touching is not allowed.

Monday 21st.

Lumi has worked out how to jump the mesh fence. 5 days is all it took to escape the enclosure, there'll be no stopping them now. Greta escaped Tuesday. Mostly they just seem to fret about being away from the others and spend their time trying to get back in again anyway :).

Harriet ignored us all Sunday, we were worried we were going backwards with her, but no, apparently she just doesn't like grapes. Yoghurt however, is the best of all treats, all three of them will eat yoghurt off Robert's finger. It's adorable. Unfortunately, they're still scared of bowls, but I remember Agnes and Ripley taking a few days to trust bowls too.

Harriet is also ok with shelled sunflower seeds.

They all managed to sleep on the perch Monday night with no prompting, hooray! Unfortunately Lumi still feels the need to shove Harriet off the perch. This seems like unfixable chicken politics. Greta has at least worked out siting against the right wall with Lumi to the left will ensure she doesn't get shoved off too.

Tuesday. 

They now associate us with food so they run up whenever we first walk over to them now :).

We spent about an hour hand shelling sunflower seeds for them today, which was a little ridiculous :). For some reason they can't work out how to eat the seeds whole, though I'm sure they'll work it out soon enough. It's so weird looking at their food container with the top covered in sunflower seeds, where they've eaten around them. Agnes and Ripley caused all sorts of trouble by scooping all the other grains out just to get to the sunflower seeds.

These weren't shelled, and therefore were unacceptable.

Each afternoon around 5pm Greta says it's bedtime. She walks into the coop and jumps up onto the the perch. She then jumps back down, walks out to the other chickens and repeats the process about a dozen times trying to convince Lumi and Harriet to come to bed. She clucks angrily about half the time. It's adorable, but so ineffective.

Lumi deciding against going to sleep.

Loss

It's been 21 long, sad weeks since we lost Agnes and Ripley. I honestly cannot say I feel any less sad about it now than I did then. I am absolutely gutted, and even though I'm no longer crying every day, I still miss them constantly, my heart aches with loneliness and sometimes I can't even breathe from the loss. 

After Robert, they were the next most important thing in my life. They always made me happy when I was sad or depressed, and always kept me company when I was alone. The simple, unconditional love only pets can give. 

For so long, the thought of new chickens made me feel ill. No matter how many people said new pets would make everything happier and better I wasn't interested. I understood it wouldn't be replacing Agnes and Ripley, but it still just felt wrong. I was not ready to move on.

However, I could not deny that a week and a half off work for Easter was a perfect time to start bonding with new chicken friends. So now we have three new friends, well, technically one friend, a mildly interested party and another who hates us. It'll be an interesting journey.

When Agnes and Ripley were the cutest baby chickens of all time I started a photo log of their progress, week by week. It was fascinating watching how they developed week to week. However Lumi, Greta and Harriet are all adult chickens, they're not going to change all that much, and certainly not quickly. I wondered how best to record this period of our lives. 

I feel this will be the best method to track our journey to be one cohesive flock. Here I can gush about each new achievement and step towards them trusting us, rather than bore the pants off individual friends. 

This is mostly just a record for me, perhaps someone will stumble upon it and maybe find something to help them befriend their new adult chickens.

Early Progress (days 2 & 3)

Friday, April 18th. After getting back from a run around 7am, in full daylight, I headed to the coop to let them out. To my surprise they hadn't worked out how to get down from the roost. I picked up Harriet and put her on the middle shelf, upon being separated from her friends she immediately jumped back up to the roost. Not a great start to the lesson. Clearly we needed one of the more dominant chickens to make the first  move. Robert managed to get Greta to stand on his hand and lowered her to the bottom shelf. Harriet then jumped down. Lumi, as the largest, and apparently silliest, took quite a lot of coaxing to jump down, she succeeded after a time.

Later in the morning I set out to the coop armed with lettuce and grapes to continue the bribery. It was slow going. Late in the afternoon, after many, many visits with tasty treats Lumi finally ate a long stalk of grass from my fingers; she didn't want to get too close. Greta and Harriet were still completely indifferent to my treats unless I threw them over.

We locked them in the coop late afternoon. They had to put themselves to bed as we had plans. They already did it once, surely that was enough to understand the process? Apparently not. Harriet was the only one to make it onto the perch, Greta and Lumi both slept on the poo shelf under the perch. Good job girls.

Saturday, April 18. They were all down on the ground when I returned from my walk this morning. Much better!

Today I armed myself with grated carrot and grapes. Lumi started taking stalks of carrot from my finger tips, eventually upgrading to off my palm by mid morning. This was better than I could have hoped for, progressing from terrified to eating from my hand in three days.

Yoghurt was my in with little Harriet, she had resisted everything, but early afternoon accepted yoghurt scooped up on an extremely long piece of straw. By late afternoon she was taking grated carrot from our fingertips. 

The only progress with Greta is her looking at the treats we offer her before hurrying away. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

They spent the last part of the afternoon running and jumping around the yard, it looked like they were frolicking. Agnes and Ripley never did anything like it, I can only assume it's because they were spoilt rotten from when they were 3 days old, and free ranged from when they were old enough to safely do so. These three however have clearly been brought up in small pens and weren't even able to roost for the first 4-6 months of their lives, which is sad. At least they can do whatever they like now :).

Lumi was the only one to make it onto the perch tonight. We had to lift the other two up, their angry clucking indicated this was not ok. Hopefully they understand better tomorrow night.