We're getting a posh chicken!

We're getting a new chicken this weekend.  It's a sort of rescue-job, but not from a battery farm.  Someone e-mailed our smallholders group to ask if anyone could give a home to their one and only chicken as they are moving house and the new place isn't suitable.  As egg production from our three is pretty bad with only Horse pulling her weight another egg-layer would be welcome.  We're going up in the world with this one as it is a fairly rare Golden-necked Ardenner.  From Belgium (as you may work out from the name) but not common anywhere else.  They are very hardy and would happily survive in the wild and like roosting in trees.  How cool is that?  I had a friend who had a chicken who roosted in a tree and she used to just say goodnight to it as she walked past with the dog each evening.  This one is called Lottie (so at least we don't have to think of something to call her) and comes when you call her name apparently and she pecks on their window if they're late putting her to bed at night!  She also lays her eggs all over the place, so we'll have to ask Horse to show her the ropes here.  Should be interesting.  Hopefully, we'll pick her up on Sunday eveing - in the past we've found the best way to integrate the new one(s) is to wait til the others have gone to bed and then just put the new one on the perch with them and shut the door.  When it's dark they just go straight to sleep and they won't know anything about it until the next morning.  I expect there'll be a bit of squabbling until she's found her place in the pecking order, but that's what chickens do and they soon seem to sort themselves out.  I'll let you know how they get on and show you a picture of Lottie.

Here's another addition to our avian flock.  Laura made this
needle-felted woodpecker for my birthday card and, rather than
throw it away with the rest of my cards, I cut it out and glued it
onto the bare branch we have in a vase in the hall.  Looks pretty
good I think.