These Unenthusiastic Chickens Are Mine

 Our flock is falling apart. Well over half of them are dead from illness, and this winter the rest are likely to perish, except for the rooster and the young ones, who are holding together well. We try our best to take care of them, but the illness part is impossible. 

I went outside to bring the eggs in this morning. The rooster, a young one, some older ones and our Barred Rock were all inside the coop because they hate the snow. That's what chickens are like, people. They hate snow. 

I had a lidful of grain for the remaining ones outside. The white one is Blondie, a mixed-breed chicken, and the brown one, Butterscotch, is a mix of Rhode Island Red and ISA Brown Hen. 

Aren't they cute?

I didn't know their exact meal placement preferences, so I just kind of stuck my arm through the hole in the wires and dumped the grain straight down. It landed rather ungracefully in a pile directly in the mud.

Blondie and Butterscotch must have been having a sucky day, because they came racing out the moment they noticed. Blondie ended up tripping over the water container and landing in it with a splash, and when the water cleared she had somehow landed feet-first. Next to her, Butterscotch shook off a cloud of strange dust, heightening my suspicions about how they spent snow days. 

All chickens seem to have a fear of water, but Blondie is an exception. She loves baths, and as Butterscotch and her awkwardly stood there, looking up at me as if there was more, she was still just contentedly standing in the water like some sort of small, white flamingo. 

I went inside the room in the coop where there's this attached wall/door thing so you can open up the nesting area from the back and collect eggs. Some hens are against this, but this was a used chicken coop, and I'm going to give a big shout-out to the creators because that's an awesome way to collect eggs. 

But this time, all I had to do was bring the egg basket inside, so I grabbed it and walked back down the stairs, and I checked on Butterscotch and Blondie. 

Blondie was still standing in the water dish, her one leg up like a flamingo, and Butterscotch was still there next to her. They were both still staring up at me, and I was all, "Well? Aren't you going to eat it?" and they just continued to stand there and stare at me. 

I gave up, because obviously the chickens wouldn't be able to answer my question, and I went back inside and set the egg basket by the door. I peeked out the window to check on them. Blondie had stepped out of the water dish (finally) and Butterscotch was hogging the entire grain pile, so I went outside and gave them some more grain, then adjourned to the cobweb that held up these pine needles:

The invisible cobweb is definitely there and it's holding it up, but you can't see it so it looks liek the needles are floating. Awesome, right?