- Sep 14, 2013
- 22
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When i was a kid on the north side of Dublin there was a chicken processing factory nearby. It was located along side a canal on the outskirts of the council estate I lived on. My friend had a Labrador dog and on our way past this factory one morning on our way to find something to do in the fields when the dog went into the ditch and came out with a bald squawking chicken. I brought it home and built a makeshift coop and run.
The gardens at the back of my terraced house were so over grown they blended into one huge garden and looked more like the amazon than gardens. Over the next few weeks this bald pink bird turned into the most beautiful white sussex chicken.
It roamed where ever it wanted, it chased cats, caught mice and competed for the dogs dinner and won. It cleared the garden of slugs, it came running when my mother scrapped a plate and best of all It laid a large egg for me every day ......
I have just taken in six battery hens that were due for slaughter. I was well prepared for them and had the coop and hen run ready and waiting. What i was not prepared for or what i had forgotten was how audacious they would soon become. I beefed up on my reading of what to expect of hens that had been caged up all their lives. I was expecting them to be timid, scared and totally unprepared for life in the real world.
After only a couple of days these hens already think they own my back garden. They don't move out of the way when I want to pass. They refuse to accept they can not leave the run when i manage to put them back in their pen after a spell outside and the way they eye ball me I am pretty sure if I happened to trip and fall on the ground they would be on me like a shot and all that would be found would be my bleached bones.
But they are great.... sitting in the garden on a sunny day with a beer and watching them is therapeutic... I would say its akin to sitting at an open fire staring into the flames.
I would recommend it anyone with high blood pressure or recuperating from an illness ..its magic
The gardens at the back of my terraced house were so over grown they blended into one huge garden and looked more like the amazon than gardens. Over the next few weeks this bald pink bird turned into the most beautiful white sussex chicken.
It roamed where ever it wanted, it chased cats, caught mice and competed for the dogs dinner and won. It cleared the garden of slugs, it came running when my mother scrapped a plate and best of all It laid a large egg for me every day ......
I have just taken in six battery hens that were due for slaughter. I was well prepared for them and had the coop and hen run ready and waiting. What i was not prepared for or what i had forgotten was how audacious they would soon become. I beefed up on my reading of what to expect of hens that had been caged up all their lives. I was expecting them to be timid, scared and totally unprepared for life in the real world.
After only a couple of days these hens already think they own my back garden. They don't move out of the way when I want to pass. They refuse to accept they can not leave the run when i manage to put them back in their pen after a spell outside and the way they eye ball me I am pretty sure if I happened to trip and fall on the ground they would be on me like a shot and all that would be found would be my bleached bones.
But they are great.... sitting in the garden on a sunny day with a beer and watching them is therapeutic... I would say its akin to sitting at an open fire staring into the flames.
I would recommend it anyone with high blood pressure or recuperating from an illness ..its magic
