Meet the girls

Very slowly my flock of chickens has been reducing in number. Of the original 6 only 3 are left, and some of the later additions also died. 
Life is good if you're a chicken in Dugoed. You get to be completely free range over 3/4 of an acre of garden, and have free run of the sheep field behind us. There's always a human who will indulge you in a handful of peanuts, or will turn over a patch of garden just so you can find worms....
However, in order to maintain the good life there needs to be a balance of males and females. Of course, the last batch of eggs that I hatched were all males, and I seem to have been playing catch up ever since. 
Hence, 4 new additions to the flock.

Meet Lazy & Kate and Niddy & Noddy.

They're 4 young Pekin pullets, the same breed as the rest of my flock (if you ignore the Big Bird). They're still quite young, so no eggs laying for a while, but will hopefully keep my flock of boys happy. 

Kate is the tiny Millefleur speckled one on the right, and is already the character of the group. First out for food, never stops eating, and is tiny in comparison to the others.

Lazy is the dark brown, she had to be the opposite to Kate because so far she seems to be able to have a nap anywhere... 

Niddy is the grey lady, and Noddy the brown. They've yet to reveal themselves as much as the other two in terms of character. When you've been raised in a shed, with attached run, with 30 other chickens for company, moving to our green and open garden, with regular human contact is a real shock to the system. When I got Penny and Farthing 2 years ago it took them a month before they left the top lawn and dared to venture down the steps!

They'll get there though.... They've already been introduced to worms! Niddy was a particular fan, it won't take the others long to learn.