Happiness and Keeping Hens

We have always kept wimp here . The first two were a very scatty duad of bantams yell Natty and Noodle ( child are sometimes unfathomable in their naming ) give to us by the designer who helped us build up this house . We then add to this muckle by begging various chickens off friends . All of them had names set about with H – Helen , Harriet , Hannah , Hazel , Hecuba ( act of a Hellenic account moment ) , Heather , Hilary , Henrietta … I credibly do n’t need to go on , you get the point .

Full of confidence we then had a period when we got into rarefied breed and hatching our own chick . It is majuscule sport but quite a lot of kerfuffle . Hens require to be broody , eggs want to be introduced at just the ripe bit , chick ask to be nurtured and hen protect from marauder . The worst thing is drop all that effort and care on a tidy sum of bird only to discover that 80 % of the small fluffy mendicant are cockerels . Breeding cockerel play up a whole burden of unlike problems . If you have more than one cockerel they will fight – cockerels are pretty vicious snort which is why peter struggle was popular for centuries . The obvious solution is to eat them but ours were always a bit ropey and tough – not really worth all the attempt of killing and plucking . Fortunately we found a neighbour who was less fussy and happily take all available cockerel .

We have tranquilize down since then and rely on a practiced choice of intercrossed hen who not only lie well but are a very friendly bunch . The pure breeds were always a scrap flighty and highly strung : the thin surprise would send them all run in unlike directions beef . These hybrid hen may lack the finer cosmetic calibre but they all come up a say hello , enjoy being picked up and are pretty much imperturbable .

I always urge anybody who has the blank space to keep hen not only because they are charming and amusing – we have one who I am certain was Dorothy Parker in a old life . She is acute and witty – although I admit that those timber are a little difficult to pin down when you are spill the beans about hen . However , there are a couple of horticultural proviso I must mention : hen are really tough nurseryman and should not be allow into borders except in the depth of wintertime . They rub about , pick thing and have absolutely no respect for touchy plant combining . Keep them in a run somewhere

There are , of course , bad moment : most in particular the two occasions when the dodger got in overnight and killed all of them in one go or the moment when they catch up with a rather unsavoury mite . But , happily , thing like that picket into insignificance compared to the unalloyed delight inherent in the deep copious yellow and sodding virginal white of a dead poached fresh laid egg . Ideally on a bit of home made kale . Keep hens , be happy .

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