94 LISTENER SEPTEMBER 14 2019
THE GOOD LIFE
I
n a fight between a
chicken and a duck,
which bird would win?
The chicken, of course.
No contest.
Chickens are bad. They
make those terrible girls on
that terrific telly show, Derry
Girls, look like angels. Like
the Derry girls, chickens
travel in gangs and they
talk rubbish, all day long.
Chickens, like the Derry
girls, are good at the craic.
A duck would be no match
for a chicken. A chicken
would simply talk a duck to
death. Chickens and ducks
can get on, apparently, but
according to my exhaustive
research via the internet,
they are “acquaintances
rather than friends”.
The reason I have been
thinking about whether
chickens and ducks could get along is
that we are being visited by a pair of
paradise shelducks. They are obvi-
ously nest-hunting and the lady duck
is showing a lot of interest in the
chimney of the outdoor fireplace.
This would be an extremely silly
choice of a place in which to lay her
eggs: they would fall straight through
and then, splat.
I don’t know anything about
ducks, so I don’t know whether theyThe chickens are
ready to turn up
the volume if a
pair of paradise
ducks gets clucky.
Ruling the roost
are brainier or sillier than chickens. Could anything
be sillier than a chicken? It seems unlikely.
Our chooks are not, though, entirely silly.
Somehow, they seem to have got hold of a clock.
They must be hiding it somewhere (chickens are
very good hiders of things, especially eggs) because
we have yet to find and confiscate it. But we know
they not only have a clock, but they have also
taught themselves to tell the time, because every
day, on the dot of midday, they start mithering,loudly, for their lunch. It is impossible to ignore a
mithering chicken.
Male birds are usually better looking than female
birds. The lady paradise duck is the exception to
that rule; she is much prettier than her mate, with
her white head and bronze body. We think this is
the same pair who raised a dozen ducklings in one
of our sheep paddocks last year. There is nothing
cuter than a brood of ducklings waddling in a row
behind their parents.
In case the ducks do decide to take up residence,we put up a row of pictures of ducks
on the lawn so that the chickens
might get acquainted with facsimiles
of their neighbours-to-be. The chick-
ens ignored the pictures of the ducks
and carried on talking.
I would love to know what they
talk about. I imagine it goes some-
thing like this: “So, she said I had
pinched her nesting box, so I said to
her she had pinched my
nesting box yesterday, so
serves her right.”
“Really, how rude. What
did she say?” And so on,
and on.G
reg has been away, on
his annual jaunt with
his dad, so I have been
home alone. I don’t mind
being home alone. Some
people hate being alone;
they get bored. I have
never been bored; that’s
what books are for. Also,
you can’t be bored in the
country – there are always
things to do – and you can’t
be bored when you have
sheep; sheep are very com-
panionable, I find.
When I am home alone,
I always think I will have
a nice quiet time. There is
no such thing as a nice quiet time
in the country. This is why there is
no end to those stories about people
moving to the country and complain-
ing about the noise. They complain
about roosters crowing and cows
mooing and sheep bleating. They
make a hell of a racket complaining
about a hell of racket.
They should try keeping chickens.
There is no such thing as a nice quietG time when you keep chickens. l
RE
G^
D
IX
O
N
Know your enemy: the chickens studying their rivals.Our chooks are
not entirely
silly. Somehow,
they seem tohave got hold
of a clock.MICHELE
HEWITSON