Clayton's Chooks

What are Clayton's chooks? The chooks you have when you don't have any chooks. We have new neighbours who moved in with 4 chickens who are free to roam during the day and seem to find our yard irresistible. Pickings are slim, I think the lizards keep us free of snails but the chickens seem to find very tasty morsels in the mulch.

Here they are around our compost heap - obviously oblivious to the wealth of eats in the form of worms in there, trust they do not discover the rich pickings in the compost!

The area is really not chook friendly, only a week or so ago we saw a fox; admittedly it has been some time since we have seen one and the council does have an eradication programme in place but they are about.
The eldest of the children is a beautiful little girl who tells us her name is Nowra (they are Korean so we may not have that quite correct) was very upset a few weeks ago when one of them was savaged by a dog and had to be put down (and waste not want not was roasted for Sunday night tea).
Nowra's favourite activity after she gets home from school is to carry Alex, the one on the left below around the yard. Alex seems surprisingly happy with that arrangement and does not complain (beats being eaten I guess).

The chickens looked to me to be old enough to be laying so I asked Nowra if they were getting any eggs, she explained to me they needed a daddy before that would happen. I knew that was not correct and started looking around our yard when I heard one of them singing her little, "hey I laid an egg" song.

Sure enough, right beside our front steps I found the first egg they had seen (three first eggs in fact). That set them searching and it appears they have quite a few places where there are nests and they have laid eggs.
They are gregarious birds and when they are in our yard they follow me about. I went into the yard with some sausages for the Magpies and Kookaburras yesterday and the chooks found it quite to their liking.
It is so nice to have chooks about without any of the problems or responsibilities, they really are endlessly entertaining.