This is Queenie. One shouldn’t have favourites, but Queenie is a definite favourite. We have had her since September 2013, buying her in as a 6 month old (ish) poult so she is now almost five years old. She is an incredible broodie and usually raises three broods a year (if we let her), one year she raised four! Being a bantam (Pekin or similar) she is very tiny and over the years she has learnt to keep out of the way of many of the other larger birds. Funnily enough though, at the moment her best buddie is Bramble, our huge Light Sussex who is probably a good four times the size. Bramble is seven and a half now and for years has had a huge suspected hernia (see 5th January 2017) in her back end, which neither stops her laying or generally get around and about!
At the moment mind you, neither of these two go out much and they are often to be found together on the top perches, contemplating life, the universe and everything. At corn time they rarely come down to eat so we have taken to allowing them to eat direct from the jug, as per the photo. This way we know then they have a good amount of fuel to keep them going through the night!!
We continue to be wet, windy and cold. We spoke to Sonya today whose family farm much of the land around us and she confirmed it was one of the worst winters she had known. That kind of gave us comfort: surely next winter won’t be as bad then???