Produce

Renegade chooks make for good eggs, though many are broken in the pursuit of an omelette, writes Paulette Whitney.

Renegade chooks make for good eggs, writes Paulette Whitney.

On our property,

every day is an Easteregg hunt. Our chickens are of nomadic blood and lay their eggs willy-nilly.

We adopted Leslie the rooster after we found him and his two brothers sleeping rough at the Leslie Vale bus stop. He’s a hardy fellow. He was a victim of being bred by somebody too faint of heart to do what must be done when one’s fluffy chicks become noisy roosters. Drive down any semi-rural road in Tasmania and you’ll find them. Unwanted boys who should have become coq au vin, instead booted from cars and left to face quoll and starvation, and sleep rough in bus shelters.

Leslie and his brothers did okay. Our neighbour put out an old dog kennel and threw them scraps, but, being the nomads they were, they continued to poo on every doorstep in the street and scratch up gardens until the three of them cornered one of my hens with amorous intentions. The two that were less hale and hearty joined our excess boys on rooster-cull day, but their hard life had given their flesh a roostery stink, leading to their fate in the dog-food pot.

Leslie, however, was grand. He was tall and copper-coloured with a shimmering jade-green and black tail, and he possessed the essential trait for a rooster: he was a gentleman. Throw him a titbit and he’d gently pick it up and drop it repeatedly, uttering a low, sweet “bok, bok, bok”, enticing a hen to eat first. He could also do the warning call, a low, chittering moan that all the best roosters do when a hawk cruises the thermals above looking for takeaway chicken. Granted, dear Leslie will make the same call when a duck flies overhead, but better safe than eaten.

This resourceful and hardy creature has passed this sense of adventure on to his progeny. Fluffy, innocent chicks grow into wild hens that laugh at fences, break into the house to eat the dog’s dinner and lay their eggs wherever the fancy takes them.

Another commonly heard chook sound is the screeching, descending “braawwk, bok, bok, bok, bok” that signifies the laying of an egg. I once thought this was a great celebration – the whole flock joins the cacophony and, being the anthropomorphist I am, I imagined them all saying “Congratulations, Mrs Wiggs. That’s a really top egg you’ve laid there.”

But a more scientific friend informed me that it’s a deflection strategy. With escapee hens clucking from every tussock, compost bin and potting bench on the farm I have no way of following the sound to the hen who laid the egg.

Occasionally this leads to a surprise clutch of chicks being led out by their gloating mother, but more often it leads to a pile of old eggs found hideously by the lawnmower, or searches through blackberry patches that once ended in my hand almost brushing the skin of the snake that had found the eggs before me and was contentedly sleeping off his feast. This waste of potential golden sponge cakes, omelettes and custards cannot be tolerated and every so often we’ll trim one wing of the naughtiest birds to foil their escape plans.

We love these feral behaviours, despite the inconveniences. The ability to dodge hawks, or raise a clutch of delicate chicks under the back steps makes for tough animals. They don’t get eaten, they don’t get sick. Our chicken run encircles our salad garden and chicks raised by wild mothers make short work of marauding grasshoppers and other protein-rich undesirables. Their proximity to the garden means that they’re fed with weeds and spent greens every day, and our favourite chef, grocer and baker friends put aside scraps for them that are turned into eggs and manure.

On Easter Sunday we’ll fill those sneaky nests with chocolate eggs and send the littlest farmhands out to search for them. With any luck they’ll stumble upon a previously hidden clutch of eggs in their search, and not a sleeping, contented snake.

Leslie, however, was grand. He was tall and coppercoloured with a jade-green and black tail, and he possessed the essential trait for a rooster: he was

gentleman.” a