Saying goodbye, saying hello

We've had another loss on the pet front.  This time Georgie, our beautiful Salmon Dutch Bantam hen passed away peacefully a couple of weekends ago.  She was given to us by our dear friends when they left for Skye and we've worked out she could well have lived for around 10 years old, so she's had a full and very happy life.  I noticed her comb beginning to get darker in the last few weeks and she was slower to eat and seemed happy to just follow Mrs. Tiggs around or sit on our shoe rack by the kitchen door!  I was so pleased to find she wasn't being pecked in these last few days, I do hate that so much.  We found her on the Sunday morning "asleep" in the hen house.  Strange, as this was the day our friends from Skye came to visit.

So, with Georgie gone, Mrs. Tiggs very quickly became unhappy and very down in the dumps.  Her prolific egg laying has ceased and she'd just mooch around not really caring about very much at all.  We looked around for another ex-battery but without much luck, but have managed to get two very young bantams from the livery yard.  Not sure what breed they are, but we've called them Ebb and Flo and they've settled in very quickly. 


Mrs. Tiggs immediately perked up and after the initial chasing around "I'm the boss" kind of stuff, all seems happy on the hen front.  Last night we got a call from the British Hen Welfare Trust offering us an ex-battery hen after our recent plea.  We'll be picking her up on Sunday! 

I've been gathering new name suggestions via Facebook and Twitter - some have been hilarious!  I'll be popping all the names in a hat and picking one on Sunday evening so if you have an fun hen name in mind please do comment and I'll add it to the list!