Weekly Chicken Fix

As the summer has come on full force the girls spend most of their time following the shade throughout the day. Their range has extended greatly -- yesterday morning I spotted them patrolling the treeline at the bottom of the yard. I find this particularly exciting because their consumption of feed has reduced by about half and I'm imagining they're making up the difference with fat, tasty bugs.

Their growth rate seems to have slowed -- perhaps because of the heat -- but the interesting item of the week (and quite surprising to me) was when Martha gave me a grownup 'cluck' one morning while I was weeding the garden.

The girls always come to see what's going on when I'm weeding the garden -- I suppose they assume that I eat bugs too and think I've found some when I'm out there pulling up stuff. Usually, there is a lot of 'cheep cheeping' and there was this time too then I heard the grownup cluck and looked up. Martha was looking at me as if she was just as surprised as me.

I didn't hear it again for a few more days but now Martha is clucking like a grownup almost all of the time. Abigail hasn't developed her voice yet but I expect to hear something from her in the next couple of weeks.