Domestic Bliss and a Mystery

The two new ladies, now named Penny and Farthing are settling in nicely. They're free ranging with the rest of the flock, and despite dire predictions on the internet of what happens when you introduce new hens to a flock, they are all getting along really well. Boyo and Froome are particularly pleased to have some new ladies.

The chicks are growing well, and are already starting to leave the cute fluffy stage, and become gawky teenagers with bad hair do's

This monster is now known as Big Bird, he (I think it's a he) is huge, almost twice the size of the other chicks, and as you can see, has hardly any down left. He's also a flyer, just like his Mum, the Pekin's are too dumpy to fly well, but the Polish blood is coming through strongly!

Getting pictures of any of the chicks is rather challenging, you open the run door and they all want to come charging out, and if you're not careful you're chasing baby chicks around the garden trying to catch them. They have been out on supervised garden excursions a few times, but Hoppy does struggle to keep up, and gets tired quickly, if we left them to ther own devices Hoppy would probably get left behind, and lost.

The other day we were moving the chick's run to a fresh spot to give them some fresh earth to dig over and we found this. We had to level off the ground slightly so there was no gap at the bottom, and found this lump of fungi.

Inside the skein was a layer of jelly with a hard lump inside, you can see where `i scraped it with my fingernail, but it was surprisingly tough.

Chop it open, and you can see all the developing spores. 

My google-fu is failing me to work out what it is, but I'm thinking a puffball of some kind? Any mushroom experts out there?