Elvis has left the building

Aaahh, poor little Elvis has moved on to the chicken run in the sky.  We weren't really surprised as you'll have gathered from my last posting.  Each morning we've been expecting the worst and this morning it happened.  For the best though I think as she'd been getting less mobile.  At least we didn't find her dead in a heap at the bottom of the steps or anything, she was lying comfortably in the woodchips in the nest box looking very peaceful, so I guess she just died in her sleep - well that's what I like to think.  Usually, we don't let the chickens sleep in the nest box, that is just for laying eggs in.  In the main bit of the house is a perch and underneath that is a plastic grow bag tray.  Chickens do most of their pooing at night and my goodness can they poo!  So, it's better for everyone if they sleep on the perch so the poo goes into the tray and we can easily clean that out each morning.  If they sleep in the nest box it gets all mucky in there which isn't nice.  Elvis did like sleeping in there though so usually when we shut them away at night we put a board between the main house and the nest box and then later on when they've put themselves to bed we go up and close the pophole and take the board out so they can go in there in the morning to lay an egg.  For the last few days we have let Elv sleep in there, mainly because she couldn't hop up onto the perch and so would have had to sleep in the poo tray - yuk!

So, we were a bit sad and reflective this morning, made worse by also hearing that Sophie, the dog who was supposed to come for afternoon tea last week also died a few days ago.  Elvis had a lovely life while she was here though and entertained us all no end.  She was such a poor little thing when she got here, tiny, skinny, bald and picked on by everyone - just look at her on this picture (she's the runty one nearest the camera).  Who'd have thought that she'd go on to be the leader of the pack with two teenagers to look after!





Well, she looks much better here doesn't she?