Mud, mud, glorious mud!

Most of the time of late the chicken run has been a rather squelchy affair. Our soil could sometimes pass for clay fit for sculptors to use and certainly isn't well drained. We have grand plans to change this in the near future by building them a run with several inches of wood chip flooring as this will be better all round, but for the mean time we have to put up with the mud.

Given the sort of winter we've had, I would anticipate our hens having muddy feet - and possibly even slightly muddy feathers. What I didn't realise is that they would end up caked in the stuff. Pepper has not been a pure white bird for many months, and while Frog's chocolate brown feathers can hide the full extent of the muck she too can build up a good layer.

Fizzy however, tops them all. Maybe she's not so good at preening as the others but I can only assume she regularly drags her belly through the muddiest puddles she can find - just for the fun of it.

Fizzy sporting this years fashion of "muddy tummy"