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- #731
I've posted this on BYC on another thread. I post it here to try to demonstrate early influences on my current view of chickens and their keeping. The point I want to emphasise is even some almost 60 years ago the battery hen was not considered to be a proper chicken.
I spent a large portion of my youth on a farm owned by an Uncle. I remember being taken around the farm by the farm manager Mr Young, a taciturn man with a shy smile. on the instructions of my Uncle to be shown where I could and couldn’t play. At each animal enclosure we would stop and I would get my instruction.
There were two large sheds in which battery chickens were housed; the smell and the noise were something to be believed. These sheds were surrounded by rough fields and it was in these fields the free range chickens were kept.
Mr Young and I walked through the fields and he would tell me about the cock fights he had seen and which hen laid the most perfect eggs. I can’t recall how many different groups of chickens there were, maybe four or five, each with a cock and a handful of hens. At each group we would stop and Mr Young would tell me a bit of history about the group members. At one particular group we stopped an unusually long distance away and Mr Young took hold of my ear as he had with many earlier warnings of danger and gave my ear a good twist, saying, ‘don’t you be going near that cock boy, he’s mean and he’ll rake you if so much as look at him sideways. Him and me have an arrangement and I’ll get his hens eggs if I’m quick but he don't take to no strangers.’
Frankly, I had no intention of going anywhere near the cocks in the fields. I had seen them fighting and this particular cock looked as mean and proud as they come.
I asked Mr Young why there were some chickens kept in the sheds and others in the fields.
‘Them hens in that shed ain’t proper chickens boy’ is the answer I got and there was no further elaboration. I watched Mr Young collect the eggs from the free range chickens some days and for a large man he was surprisingly nimble and the mean cock he were equally wary of each other.
I’ve kept the memory of those days for fifty something years and I left my childhood and Mr Young with some distinct memories; Mr Young liked twisting ears to make his point, he loved his free range chickens and respected the cocks.
I spent a large portion of my youth on a farm owned by an Uncle. I remember being taken around the farm by the farm manager Mr Young, a taciturn man with a shy smile. on the instructions of my Uncle to be shown where I could and couldn’t play. At each animal enclosure we would stop and I would get my instruction.
There were two large sheds in which battery chickens were housed; the smell and the noise were something to be believed. These sheds were surrounded by rough fields and it was in these fields the free range chickens were kept.
Mr Young and I walked through the fields and he would tell me about the cock fights he had seen and which hen laid the most perfect eggs. I can’t recall how many different groups of chickens there were, maybe four or five, each with a cock and a handful of hens. At each group we would stop and Mr Young would tell me a bit of history about the group members. At one particular group we stopped an unusually long distance away and Mr Young took hold of my ear as he had with many earlier warnings of danger and gave my ear a good twist, saying, ‘don’t you be going near that cock boy, he’s mean and he’ll rake you if so much as look at him sideways. Him and me have an arrangement and I’ll get his hens eggs if I’m quick but he don't take to no strangers.’
Frankly, I had no intention of going anywhere near the cocks in the fields. I had seen them fighting and this particular cock looked as mean and proud as they come.
I asked Mr Young why there were some chickens kept in the sheds and others in the fields.
‘Them hens in that shed ain’t proper chickens boy’ is the answer I got and there was no further elaboration. I watched Mr Young collect the eggs from the free range chickens some days and for a large man he was surprisingly nimble and the mean cock he were equally wary of each other.
I’ve kept the memory of those days for fifty something years and I left my childhood and Mr Young with some distinct memories; Mr Young liked twisting ears to make his point, he loved his free range chickens and respected the cocks.
