When we moved into the house we presently reside in, some thirty three years ago, we inherited the previous owner’s chooks (chickens). We had several crossbreed hens of normal size, and a little half bantam hen. She was the original “little red hen”. I was told her ancestry was buff orpington crossed with rhode island red, and obviously one of them had to have been a bantam. She was smaller than the other hens, and very trim and healthy looking. This was my first encounter with chooks since I was a kid, and I loved the fact that they laid me lovely fresh eggs, with brown shells. After a while I decided that when one of the hens went broody, I would buy some day old chicks and put under them. I knew none of the eggs they laid would be fertile, as at that stage we had no rooster. Well wouldn’t you know it, they all went broody together….typical I thought…so off I went and bought six day old chickens. I’m not sure why they call them day old chickens, because by the time I got them they would have had to be close to a week old. I suppose it’s because they were day old once…….
Anyway, I took my precious cargo down to the hen house and popped the first one under our little half bantam. She fluffed her feathers up in annoyance, but once she saw what she had, she settled down, very pleased with herself and immediately took charge of its care. So far so good I thought, and proceeded to put some of the others under the other hens. Well….I didn’t get a good reception at all! The others were irate at these intruders and actually started to peck them! So I grabbed the poor little chicks before any real damage was done, thinking ungrateful wretches! and gave all the chicks to the little hen. She was beside herself with joy, and thought she was very clever, because she had hatched these babies out by herself without even having an egg!
As they grew bigger, she was a wonderful mother. If any of the other hens so much as looked sideways at her, she would attack! She would fluff up her feathers so she looked twice her size, and off she would go, and the others would beat a strategic retreat! She was ferocious to anything apart from her chicks, and fortunately she seemed to take kindly to me, and the kids, although I instilled into them that they must behave carefully around her, and not to upset her when they collected the eggs, or fed the hens.
In due course we acquired a rooster, and of course, he mated with the hens (constantly, it seemed) and we then had a supply of fertile eggs. So when the hens went broody, I would allow them a few eggs, and hoped for the best. It was a bit of a steep learning curve for me, and I soon discovered that the cross breed hens, particularly the white leg horn crosses, were good layers, but terrible breeders. They would get off the nest before the eggs were hatched, which was a bit of a waste, and also the bigger hens were likely to roll on their chicks and squash them, which was also a bit of a waste, specially for the poor chick….and time after time the only one I could rely on to do the job properly was my little red hen. So she became the official “breeder”. Every setting I gave her, she would stay there till they hatched, and never injured any of them. After a while, she became known as “Mother Hen”, because she either hatched them, or fostered them if they were day olds that I had bought.
One day I discovered she was missing. I was quite upset because I didn’t know what had happened to her. There was no sign of any feathers, as you would expect if she had been taken by a fox, or a hawk. However, after a few days, she came back, and I saw her feeding with the others, then a while later she was gone again. I realised she was flying over the fence, because at that stage the yard was fox proof, and every few days she was back again for a feed. I looked everywhere, in our own back yard, and the neighbours’ yards, to find where she had made her nest, but to no avail, she was well and truly hidden. Then….three weeks after she had first disappeared, she came back….with eleven chickens following her. And the really amazing thing was, ten of them were little hens! She didn’t fly this time, she brought them home, right up to the gate, looking very proud of her achievement, and demanded entry, with her eleven little fluff balls, peeping as they went. I decided I wouldn’t let her go into the yard with the other hens, this cargo was too precious, so I organised something for her in the main part of the yard, where she would be safe with them till they were a little bigger. While they were there, one of the neighbours cats jumped over the fence. He didn’t even get a chance to look at the chickies, she was off after him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cat move so fast! A couple of times after that I saw him climb the fence, look over, see her….and jump back down on his side again…..
I allowed her and her brood back into the chooks yard after a while, and they all grew up to be lovely hens…..and one rooster. Over the years, she reared many many chicks. I can remember one time she only had three, and she was back in the “nursery yard” which also housed a pumpkin vine. We were visited at that time by a hawk…..what we call a chicken hawk. He flew over Mother and her brood. She instantly hid the babies under the pumpkin vine and started rushing round like a mad thing, squawking and cackling, trying to draw his attention away from them. Her noise alerted the kids, and they came and grabbed me, as well as cricket bats, stumps, anything they could find for a weapon. One of the boys suggested we take down some boiling water to throw on the hawk…..I said I didn’t think he would wait while we boiled the kettle, and besides, the hawk was just hungry, he wasn’t really being bad. So this poor hawk was confronted by an angry mother hen, and an army of 4 small children wielding toys of various descriptions, and one adult. He decided it wouldn’t be worth his while to hang around, and flew off, probably to annoy some other chooks. Meanwhile the little chicks were still under the pumpkin leaves…..very well hidden. We had a look for them and couldn’t see them. But after Mother decided it was safe, she called them, and they came running, and snuggled under her feathers….
Mother lived on, doing her thing, raising chicks until she was quite old. She still looked as sleek and healthy as she did as a young hen. Then one day she suddenly aged, and around 2 weeks later, she just died in her sleep. We were sad she had gone, but pleased she had had such a good life, and been so well for nearly all of it. We estimated she must have lived to the ripe old age of around ten years old. And her legacy lived on in all the chickens she had raised……
Mamaroo's Diary 