The “escape artist” returns and is recaptured

Some weeks ago, when we moved the three Silkie hens and their twelve chicks from the nursery runs to the quail barn, one of the chicks escaped. It took all day for the chick to re-emerge from the laurel bushes and return to the nursery run ( we had left the door open just in case).

The chick had lost feathers on the back of its neck. Was Nigel the culprit? Anyway said chick settled back in with the others until yesterday when we moved the three mothers with the three Silkie chicks to the Silkie enclose. We moved the other nine chicks to the paddock run.

As soon as the little birds were put in the open after their long incarceration (due to avian flu sweeping the world) the “escape artist” clambered up the six foot fence and flew out over the top of the enclosure into…….the laurel hedge!

The other birds seemed perfectly delighted with their new home

But the “escape artist” had disappeared.

I put the birds to bed in their new house, resigned to the loss of that one chick.

This evening, as we went to put the polytunnel birds to bed, I counted nine and not eight birds. The ninth was small with feathers missing from the back of its neck. We cornered and caught the “escape artist”, trimmed its wings and I took it back to the paddock to be reunited with the others