We bought our hens off of a very strange man indeed. We arrived at his farm to collect the year old hens I had ordered over the phone. The farm was brimming with poultry, some would call "free- range" others would call "feral". There were birds of all description and breeding running around all over the place. Hens with chicks of the oddest mixed breeding, it was hard to imagine what the parentage actually was. I think I saw what could only have been a Light Sussex chicken crossed with a Muscovy duck crossed with a Cockatoo, but having studied a little biology, I knew I must be hallucinating. Again.
The alarm bells did ring, but we are no pussies and refused to pay any heed to those infernal bells. That is for the weak and the cowardly. "Let us have these hens of questionable parentage, age and health" we said, "Here, take our money". "That's right, we are those city slicker suckers from yonder ways whom you have no doubt heard about". The strange man came out of his house and we introduced ourselves. He told us he had already given our birds away to someone else who arrived earlier, and now he would have to go and catch some more. This appeared to make him a little irritated, as if we had inconvenienced him because he had given our birds to someone else. Fifteen minutes later he arrives with his hands full of hens hanging upside down by the legs and plonks them into the boxes we had bought with us to carry them home. Money exchanges hands. Deal done.
The strange man had a very usual last name, the same name as a friend of mine who has family in the south west, so I asked: "Are you related to so-and-so from such-and-such a place?" He said: "I probably have got family there", then he turned away and went inside his house. G and I didn't know what this meant, so we hung around for about 10 minutes waiting for him to come out again. He did not. We got in the car and left, without a "thank you" or a "goodbye"
We drove our hens home, remarking on what a strange man we had just encountered. We decided that the strange man's wife had recently left him and he was not coping with life, hence the disorder of the birds and his strange behaviour. This made us feel sorry for him and wish him better luck and better times in the future.
Above: Our first hen house
G and I (mostly G) worked on this based on what we did not read about or know about hens.
Consequently we did go a bit wrong with the design of this hen house
As anyone who knows hens can tell, this roost is too high off the ground. Chickens are relatively clumsy when they alight from the roost and can hurt their feet when they land. This can lead to a condition called 'bumble foot' where an abscess forms in the foot, and because the skin is so thick it does not burst. It just keeps getting bigger and the bird needs to have it lanced by the vet and go on antibiotics, or alternatively have some poultice applied and changed daily which seems like a difficult task but apparently people do it. One of our birds developed bumble foot, so although it sounds like a made up condition that couldn't possibly exist, bumble foot is real and treating it is not simple.
Below: The nesting box. We actually got this right. Elevated off the ground. Private. Dark. A cover over the top. Perfect size for a hen to sit. Once they were filled with straw, they were perfect. The hens spent many happy hours in these, sometimes laying, sometimes sleeping, sometimes brooding, and unfortunately, sometimes shitting.
The water container was also right. It fitted into a special stand that G constructed and this prevented the birds messing the water and also stopped them tipping it over.
But it was a bit awkward to move about, being large and heavy. Eventually it fell into disuse and then went to the rubbish tip. We replaced it with large shallow bowls and plastic poultry waterers, which were easily transportable and easier to clean. We had already started to get lazy, at least I had anyway.
The feeding container was right, but we put it in the wrong place. We put it too close to the roost so the birds occassionally flew into it when alighting from the roost, because they can be, as I said, a little clumsy. The disorder didn't get the name 'bumble foot' for nothing! We ended up moving it. It was good to have hanging from the ceiling and raised a fair way off the ground to prevent mice eating the chook food, because breeding mice was not part of our farming plan.
The wind break was a must have where we lived. The wind came directly up the hill and into the hen house. This screen kept the wind out and kept the birds warm. Draughts and damp can cause respiratory problems in hens and hens with respiratory problems often die. In summer, on the odd hot day this screen worked against us by not allowing the cool evening breeze in and making the house hot. We used to hose the roof and outside walls down to cool the house in the evenings. As the birds were free range all day, they did not spend much time inside in the day. A removable screen would be preferred for any future hen house we build.
Below: The hens arrived in their packing boxes and got straight to work exploring their new home. We kept them confined to their house for a fortnight, so they could get used to it and recognise it as home, and so we could see if they were healthy or sick birds. They had, after all, come from the farm of the strange man whose wife had left him.
Below: Our first eggs laid just days later. We weren't expecting eggs so soon after the trauma of the move, but the girls were very good to us. They knew they were on easy street here on Morilla. All the best laying pellets, wheat, grit, green grass and household scraps. They didn't want to make waves and get sent back.
Desperate to get out to the green grass!
Their first day out to free range and the birds are learning that the dog is safe, and Holly the dog is learning that the birds are to be watched but not touched! Behind the hens is the vegetable garden where I grew all sorts of greens for the chickens to enjoy. They especially liked silverbeet, which is good because it is the one thing which grew in abundance and the one thing we could not eat in abundance.
After a very short time they settled in nicely and made themselves right at home. They are curious creatures and always gathered about me when I was in the garden to see what I would dig up that they could possibly eat. Here they are checking out what I have in the wheel barrow.
Once out and about the chooks were everywhere
'Broken chickens"- chooks taking a sand bath. We called them "broken chickens" because when they are all stretched out in the sand they look broken. You have to see it to understand it.....
Below: Two years later the hens are now 3 years old ( or so we think, but who really knows?) and not such great layers. In fact they do not lay at all. They eat a lot of food and are the first ones on the roost in the evening, sometimes I will find them there at 3pm in the afternoon! Country life can make everyone lazy! Now is the time they should be culled as they are eating but not laying, costing but not producing. However, we could not do this, as we had come to love 'the girls' and would not wish any harm upon them. All of the hens lived out their lives on Morilla, except one who made the trip to our new home in York but died upon arrival. A very sad day indeed!
We have killed some of our poultry. We killed a rooster and made him into a creamy pasta dish. He was a little tough. The plucking process was just a difficult and messy thing, and the smell- unimaginable! We killed 4 more roosters as unfortunately they are unnecessary and do fight and harry the hens. They met their demise by bullet to brain, but we did not gut, pluck, or eat them. They went to the tip.
We have also killed a couple of ducks, but simply removed the breasts so as to spare the plucking. Again, unfortunately, they were old male ducks and proved to be tough, though tasty! My sister served them with a plum sauce but I think the dogs got most of them, after we had worn our teeth to the gums and had started to resemble old eskimo women. We find it hard to kill a perfectly healthy youthful duckling who is looking very pleased with itself and happy about being alive. There is a line one has to cross in order to kill another creature. We crossed it nervously, tentatively and did not like what we saw on the other side. The main problem is, of course, we spend too much time in the company of our animals, get to know them as individuals and come to view them as pets. It is very hard to kill a pet. We realised that if we were to be able to kill these animals, we would have to distance ourselves from them. And that is sad because most of the pleasure of owning them comes from knowing them!
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