What’s chookin’ good lookin’
Nadia Lim is surrounded by chickens, with a hand-reared ‘home’ flock and commercial ‘orchard’ flock, and that’s eggs-actly how she likes it.
Iused to think life with two small kids was busy, noisy and messy. Then we moved to the farm and got chickens. Now I have a small gang of feathered friends who take an interest in everything I do, and are an endless source of fascination, fun and free fertiliser.
I hadn’t really been around chickens growing up, except when visiting my Chinese grandmother in Malaysia. There were always chickens and a few roosters pecking around the communal yard at her house, and she thought nothing of capturing one and chopping off its neck for a special occasion dinner.
Life for our chickens is very different. In fact, sometimes I think they’re living the dream. They hang out with their mates all the time, having dirt baths and sunning themselves, and they eat a delicious and varied diet of our food scraps.
During spring and summer, they are pretty productive. We get an egg each almost every day and Rocky, our ‘‘king’’ rooster, is pretty busy with the hens.
We have two flocks of chickens. Our laying flock in the paddocks lay beautiful eggs, which are sold to cafes and gourmet food stores around Arrowtown. Then there’s my home flock, which are the chickens I’ve raised from young or hatched.
My home flock lives in our little orchard, a short walk from my kitchen door. They’re a colourful, diverse, quirky, inquisitive bunch. When we first moved here, I adopted a barred plymouth rock cockerel (juvenile rooster), Rocky, and four hens (Tu¯ ı¯, a black orpington; Dora and Columba, two white silkies; and Alfie, who’s a mixed bag). Fast forward one-and-a-half years and there are now 18 of them, over three generations.
Rocky is a gentleman. He walks his ‘‘ladies’’ back to their roosting spot in the evenings, and lets the hens and chicks eat first.
The best-known of our home flock is Marvin, who I hand-reared last spring. Marvin’s mum, Tu¯ ı¯, wasn’t ready to be a teenage mum last year and although she’d been broody with a couple of clutches of eggs (about 10 or 12 eggs), she would kick them out of her nest as they were ready to hatch. Hens will keep laying until they have a clutch (about three or four a week), but incubation is what ‘‘activates’’ the egg turning into a chicken.
An egg needs to be incubated for 21 days to hatch. Incubating is a fulltime job. The hens will sit on the eggs constantly, taking a 20-minute break every 24 hours to poo and have something to eat.
We try not to intervene too much with our animals, but I couldn’t keep watching Tu¯ ı¯ destroy her eggs. I rescued the last four and made a little incubator (with a lightbulb and a straw-lined cake tin) for them in the house.
My husband Carlos thought I was way too optimistic, but Marvin – my little miracle who was the only one to hatch from the saved eggs – proved him
After Marvin had a run-in with Carlos who threatened to turn him into a coq-au-vin, I knew he had to go up to the orchard and away from the house.
wrong. It was a lot of work. Being the middle of winter, I hand-reared him in the house for the first eight weeks. He slept in a box by the fireplace with a hot-water bottle to keep warm. Eventually, he went into his own hutch near the house.
Marvin’s an interesting case. Because he was hand-reared, he doesn’t completely identify with being a chicken. But then he knows he’s not quite like us, either.
I can tell that while he’s accepted by the flock, he feels like an outsider. For example, when they’re all interacting and hanging out together, he’s sometimes a little unsure as to who to hang out with or what to do.
When I feed them scraps and layers of mash (a top-up feed to help with healthy egg shell production), he follows me wanting other food because he was rather spoilt, growing up on fresh mussels steamed especially for him. Sometimes I feel guilty that it’s my fault he feels different and doesn’t quite fit in like the others.
He went through a teenage boy stage, wanting to assert his authority, getting grumpy, and lashing out (along with a breaking voice, and wanting to roost on the rubbish bins).
And that was when, after he had a run-in with Carlos, who threatened to turn him into a coq-auvin, I knew he had to go up to the orchard and away from the house.
He’s now calmed down, which might have been partly thanks to the lovely hens I put in with him.
For a while, he was with one of the ‘‘blonde squad’’, four gorgeous faverolles that have caramel and white feathers and fluffy ear muffs. I think she got too much for him though, so now he’s with Martha, his half-sister.
I love Martha, she’s one of my friendliest chickens. None of the home flock are afraid of humans, but Martha is the only one who likes being picked up and cuddled.
The latest to join the home flock is Missy, a brown shaver. We rescued her from our big laying flock, where she was being bullied by the other hens.
Hens can be mean. You can see where the term ‘‘henpecked’’ comes from. If the flock senses a chicken is a little weak, they will single it out and attack it.
When we saved Missy, her bottom was raw from feathers being pecked out. But it’s amazing how fast she recovered, and now she has a full, beautiful bushy tail.
When we first got Missy, I put her in the hutch and she didn’t come out for almost three days. I was worried she would never integrate with the home flock, but now they love her. They all sleep and have dirt baths together. It’s heart-warming to see how they’ve accepted her.
Although chickens are fascinating to watch and learn about, one of my favourite things about them is that they serve such a purpose. I don’t feel guilty about having food scraps because nothing goes to waste.
I try to keep my home flock out of my vegetable garden because they like nothing better than a good scratch around in it, which is disastrous for the plants. But a few weeks ago, much to their suspicion and hesitation, I let them in, to clean up the dead plant leftovers and to poo (their poo is gold when it comes to growing vegetables).
A lot of people don’t realise that eggs are seasonal, just like fruit and vegetables. Production naturally drops in winter, with the shorter daylight hours.
Commercial egg farmers keep production up with artificial lighting, but we don’t get as many eggs from our home flock at this time of year. We might get 8 or 9 eggs a day in summer, but at this time of year we’re down to two.
That’s not such a bad thing, though. I quite like having porridge for breakfast in winter.
Nadia Lim writes a weekly column for Life about her experiences on her Central Otago farm where she is pursuing her vision for sustainable, ethical farming.