Well we are still banished to the fruit cage with no contact allowed between us and the wild birds. We have been here since DEFRA’s declaration in December and really miss our time roaming in the orchard, and having a dust bath in the half-empty wood shed.
View of Chagford from the vegetable garden
We feel that the 'Fruit cage' is something of a misnomer...all cage and no fruit...where is the fruit? We wander around all day and have eaten every sign of greenery. Nothing left now but a few spiky twigs, that don't look very promising. The white hen has decided not to lay any eggs in protest. In contrast with last winter when she continued to lay throughout December and January, frankly now she just can't be bothered. It has been rumoured that many humans are currently furloughed and this seems a very sensible arrangement: zero productivity, but the reassurance of enough food and shelter to survive. Our mental health could well be suffering - it is very boring here - not even a chance of daily exercise outside the cage. If they did let us out we would not go far. We would not dream of cycling anywhere (let alone seven miles across a big city) - after all a hen needs a bicycle like a fish needs second wave feminism.
There was a very friendly robin who used to come and visit us in the orchard - and all those squirrels stealing the apples, and the excitement of the odd deer. But here in the fruit cage the views are good, but there is no social contact and no variety of forage and scratching options. The layers pellets continue to arrive regularly, water of course and the odd vegetable scraps, but really this is nothing compared with the joy of scratching around for bugs under the larch in the orchard. I have heard that Avian Flu was reported near Exmouth, but that is miles from here so we really don't understand why this needs to keep us locked up and locked down.
There are constant updates about corvid19 on the news, but we don’t understand why the crows should get all the attention. Why is there so little to remind people of DEFRAs schedule 3 stating that even a couple of tame hens need to be housed separately from wild birds. When will there be an update? We are hoping that the news from DEFRA will soon be that we can return to our usual residence - Don't it always seem to go - you don't know what you've got til it's gone!
