It is said that sexing chicks is the toughest poultry-related job that there is.
Never having done it myself, I can’t contest that – but putting four reluctant chickens to bed must run it a close second. The problem is, even if you get to the stage of physically picking them up and trying to steer them into the chicken house, as soon as you turn round to deal with one of the others, the first one pops back out.
There’d have been a hilarious video of this evening’s shenanigans if I’d thought to rig up a camera, but it would probably have been too embarrassing: being bested repeatedly by chickens isn’t something that one normally wants to boast about.
(Jane managed to sort it out in the end, not least thanks to a cunning plan of removing all the feeders first.)