MAY 2017 149
M
y life is complete – I have
chickens again. I’ve spent the
past few weeks fussing around
the empty chook palace,
making sure the boxes have
clean wood shavings, getting all the right food
carefully placed in specially made feeders and
not one, but three, different complicated
water devices just in case one fails.
It reminded of those last days before you
give birth, when you find yourself in the baby
room refolding clothes and nappies you had
already folded three times and checking every
corner of the room for dust and making and
re-making the cot. Here I was, at 54, literally
getting clucky.
My last hens are now living with my good
friend Lynda Hallinan on her Hunua property. I
had them in the city and one day a Jack Russell
dog tore two of them to bits and left the last three
absolutely petrified. Chickens are very nervous
wee things and once they get a huge fright they’re
not in a good way. So Lynda took them out to her
place and has allowed them to gently ease back
into being good, happy productive chickens. And
I realised that when you live in a city, where
people feel they can walk their dogs off
leads, then chickens just aren’t safe.
But I’ve always pined for more and
when we bought this property in the
Hokianga three years ago I tagged an
old fern house as the future hen house.
Now I have four splendid girls who
go by the names of Diana, Unity, Debo
and Decca – I’m borrowing my poultry
names from the Mitford sisters, the six
siblings who took English society by
storm in the 1920s and 30s.
Diana is a black Orpington with
glossy black feathers which have a
beautiful dark green sheen. Diana
Mitford was one of the more beautiful
Mitfords so this name suited my
dark-eyed hen. She is also a bit regal
and a tad shy so there’s a bit of
Princess Diana in the name too.
Debo and Decca are the two
Plymouth Rocks breed, who have
lovely black and white feathers. They
are true sisters – if one shakes herfeathers, so does the other and they rather
sweetly sleep huddled together. Debo Mitford
(Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire) was a
writer and a long-time chicken keeper, while
Decca (Jessica) was a journalist, activist and
political campaigner. These two are my daring
hens; the youngest, but the most adventurous.
And then there is Unity – my white Sussex
hen, who is a wee bossy-boots and at present
spends her time henpecking all the others in
her bid to become top hen. Unity Mitford
was a Nazi, which I’m choosing to ignore, but
I figured she’d probably approve of an Aryan hen.
I’m spending far too much time in the hen
house with the girls – in fact I have put chairs in
there so my husband Paul and I can have our
morning coffee and our evening drink with them.
I even had my lunch in there the other day. I can
watch hens for hours – they are very relaxing. But
it’s not all sweetness and light in hen land.
My other hens were hand-raised, making them
very easy to pick up and cuddle, but these ones are
terrified of me, so we have daily taming sessions
where I encourage them to eat from my hand. But,
unlike my other hens, they turn their noses up at
sultanas, which were like chocolate to the other
girls. Instead I am using home-baked
apple oat cake, which they go crazy for- unlike Paul, who took one bite and
said, “We should really save this for
visitors” (which means he didn’t like it).
As you will know from my last
column, the hens are housed in a rather
large palace where they have loads of
room to roam, lots of fresh grass, a few
trees for shade and a great view of the
ocean. So they don’t want to leave. They
are too young to lay yet so I was hoping
to put them to work free-ranging and
cleaning up my vege patch for the
winter garden, but they won’t come out.
I am reminded of myself when I book
into a fabulous hotel overseas and love
it so much I have no desire to leave and
see the sights, much to Paul’s horror. I
want to luxuriate in the clean white
sheets and order room service!
So I’ll keep up the room service and
clean bedding in the hen house and hope
the girls will soon repay the favour. AWW
Named after the Mitford sisters, homed in a “palace” and treated to specially
baked cakes, life is good for Wendyl Nissen’s new brood of hens...Birds of a feather
[ Country diary ]
“
I wasliterally
getting
clucky.
”
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GETTY IMAGES.
Unity Mitford, left,
with her sister
Diana in 1932.