The weather has been bad, very bad! I’m not talking about snow – we haven’t got any – no I’m talking about having had the wettest winter since….since we arrived in North Devon – so wet, that we have springs coming out of the ground where we have never had springs before!

I put my exbatts into what I thought was quite a large run – 20′ by 12′ – and in no time at all they have turned it into a muddy mess, ducks couldn’t have done a better job.

Last week they got given some extra grass to play on, but this was only going to be temporary, and it was only going to be a matter of time before this disappeared as well.

Much against the finances of the day, we have invested in a nice 6′ * 4′ shed, and the exbatts have been moved where they will shortly be joined by my oldies – a light sussex and a couple of marans, well past egg laying duties. I want the exbatts to sort out territory first, so that they have the upper hand when the oldies move in!

From here, they will be fenced in a small area for a week – no grass to mess up – and after that they will have the whole 11 acres to explore. They won’t explore it all, but they will have so much grass to play around on that they won’t mess up any of it.

Lucky birds!