A broody chicken is a fascinating thing. Kiev is a Buff Orpington, and is prone to this behaviour, sure enough she was broody about the same time last year. She will sit in the nest box from dawn until dusk, day after day, not eating or drinking and not moving or exercising in any way and not laying any eggs. This year, in his valiant attempt to 'snap her out of it' Alan has tried a number of approaches which have included building a partition at the end of Stalag Chicken for Kiev to remain in solitary confinement ..........which she did............for about 3 minutes. We don't even know how she was escaping, I stood one morning with a camera to photograph her escape. I know I'm starting to sound like Mr Tweedy again but I swear, she saw me and hid behind the coop, there was a slight wobbling of the nylon netting that formed the barrier between her 'confined' area and the main part of the run and there she was, no longer in solitary! I have no idea how she did it! Another time Alan, Abi and I were all lying on the grass the other side of the run fence and none of us saw how she got across the barrier! Alan has been reading books and consulting websites and yesterday I found him shoving Kiev back into the Chimenia (see blog from June 2007), our improvised Sin Bin. When he removed her at the end of the day (covered in soot) she stomped straight back up the ramp into the coop where she remained.
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