Rachel Wise: Ain't nobody here but us chickens ...

Too chicken to hang about. Photo / File

It is a lifestyle? Or a life sentence? Having even the smallest of lifestyle blocks can doom the unwary to a life of unruly sheep, petulant pigs, downright despicable chickens, unfortunate episodes involving electric fences, and water pumps that break down on the Friday evening of long weekends. Mostly

My daughters were leaning on the fence watching the hens scratch about in the paddock.

"You should get a rooster," said the eldest.

"Why?" I asked, being of the opinion that roosters are loud and stroppy and eat a lot without producing anything useful in return.

"Because we want baby chickens," cajoled the youngest daughter. "We love baby chickens."

"Yeah, we want cute baby chickens to play with," whined the eldest daughter.

I decided I had to get firm with them.

"You're both over 30 and you don't live here any more," I reminded them.
"If you want chickens you are welcome to them. In your own backyards."

They tend to forget they have their own backyards I think, given that as they grew up and left home, they managed to leave behind a menagerie of leftover pets.

There were dogs that would never cope in town. Cats that wouldn't get on with flatmates' cats, the slightly incontinent chihuahua that was passed from daughter to daughter and then came to our place and never left.

And there was Philip the miniature horse who my youngest daughter obviously couldn't take flatting with her - or anywhere else.

So they can want chickens all they like, but I don't need a rooster.

Hence, when I got a phone call about a potentially homeless rooster, I knew I was safe. I don't need a rooster.

This one had appeared in suburban backyard, hotly pursued by a man who wanted to eat it.

"I offered to buy it, to save its life," she said.

"I have called him Everson."

Everson had settled in and put on weight, unsurprisingly since his rescuer had treated him to special chook feed from the pet shop.

"It's meant to make hens lay better," she said. "I have no idea what it's meant to make roosters do ... but he's nearly twice the size he was when he arrived."

Everson, however, had started to crow. That's against the rules.

Bylaws allow hens in suburban backyards, but not rowdy roosters.

Rachel Wise.

Which I think is unfair, given you can rev your engine and crank your sounds, but a hearty crow or two puts your rooster at risk.

So Everson had to go, and I offered to help find him a home to go to.

I asked around, but I seem to have attracted like-minded friends over the years and they all said "roosters are loud and stroppy and ... no thanks."

So of course Everson is now at my house.

He was delivered in a rubbish bin, accompanied by his bag of special food. He was huge and shiny and colourful.

My hens weren't immediately sold on him. He was bossy, and he made a hell of a racket. Over the next few days they split into two factions - fans and foes.

The fans followed him everywhere, trailing after him like a feathery Everson entourage.

The foes decamped.

I found them in my hayshed ... I chased them back into the paddock.

I found them on the lawn ... I chased them back into the paddock.

I found them vandalising my vege garden ... I saw red.

Enlisting my husband, I formulated a plan to catch the Foes and trim their wing feathers, thus preventing them from flying over the garden fence.

We would entice them into the little wheeled chook-house in the paddock to catch them.

The enticing went well. All of the chooks and Everson rushed into the small enclosure for the grain I threw in. I shut the door.

Then I reached in to grab one of the Foes.

They all shuffled to the other end of the A-frame pen.

Hubby reached in from the other end.

They all shuffled into the middle. Now neither of us could reach them.

"You'll have to go in and grab them," said my husband.

I looked at him ... the enclosure is little more than chook-height. With a chook-sized door. And a small flap over the nest boxes to collect the eggs.

"Bugger off," I said.

"If I lift it up a bit," he suggested, "you can roll in and I will put it back down. Then you can catch them and hand them out to me."

I looked at the chooks. They stood firmly in the middle of the enclosure out of reach and looked back at me.

"Move over," I told them, "I'm coming in."

Hubby lifted the cage and I rolled under. He plonked it firmly down, whacking me on the head in the process.

"It's gross in here," I said, my head in the nesting area and my feet in the water bowl.

The chooks weren't happy either. They flapped and swore as I caught them and handed them out to my husband.

Wings trimmed, they rushed off in disgust.

"That's that done then," said my husband dusting off his hands.

I asked if he'd forgotten something.

"No, what?"

"Let me out."

Everson crowed ... it sounded a little bit smug ...