Humours of a Henhouse.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 454, 15 March 1890, Page 3

Humours of a Henhouse.

Bv Julia L. Huxley. It is now rather more than two years since Mr Turveydrop, attended by his eight adoring wives, came to grace our humble abode with his presence. Mr Turveydrop is—ala 3 ! I mean was —a cock, a black Hamburg by descent, with feathers that phone with a rich metallic lustre, a superb tail, and a strut which would not have disgraced the * Model of Deportment ’ himself. Ho and his hens arrived in a large packing case, looking exceedingly sulky and uncomfortable; and even after they were unpacked and turned into their comfortable house they moped about for several days, refusing to make a sound, or do anything but; eat. Turveydrop was the worst of all, which was very depressing, as one of the chief joys we had looked for in possessing a cock was his melodious crow in the early morning. But one happy morning, as I wa3 descending the stairs, a musical sound floated in through the open window. I reached tho bottom in one bound—the other inmates of the house had also heard the joyful sounds, and in a few moments the entire household was assembled in the back garden, listening. Had it been a false alarm ? No, the exquisite notes were repeated—our own cock had crowed in our own garden! The largest landowner in England could nob feel greater pride in his possessions than we felt at that moment.

The first egg was an even greater triumph. The hens arrived in October, and in the innocence of our hearts we expected them to begin laying immediately. Every day the laying baskets were carefully examined,, but no eggs were ever discovered. After a month or two of this we gave up the daily search in despair, and began to think they must be a purely ornamental kind, which didn’t lay. The baskets were visited in a half-hearted way about once a fortnight, and at last, on January 31st—nearly four months after their-arrival one solitary egg was discovered, islanded in a large basket filled with straw. Many were the discussions as to what should be done with this treasure—should it be blown, and made the nucleus of a collection ; or boiled hard, and kept, like a Chinese egg, for a thousand years ; or should it be beaten, and, if so, by whom ? Finally it was decided to carefully apportion it among the family. When Mr Turveydrop first came to live with us he was nameless, and it was not until we had been in his society for four or five months that the conviction was slowly forced upon us that the only name which he could possibly be allowed- to boar was—Turveydrop. Tho, truth’ is, we had made a sad mistake about him at first. We, had settled to name the fowls out of Dickens, and in a rash moment, without dueeon-

sideration of the fitness of things, we christened him Mr Pickwick. Day by day the total unsuitableness of this name weighed more heavily upon our minds mildness of disposition, chivalrous consideration for the weaker sex, kindness towards inferiors —all these qualities, so conspicuous in Mr Pickwick, were conspicuous but by their absence in our feathered friend. One warm day in April we were sitting on an old box in the run studying the fowls—a favourite amusement of ours on fine days—when, having just witnessed some unusually gross display of selfishness on his part, we exclaimed with one voice, * That fellow's name ought to be Turveydrop !’ Turveydrop ho was called henceforward.

It was shortly after this that Turveydrop fell ill —a curious kind of illness which caused him to be very mopy and disagreeable, and ended, not to put too fine a point upon it, in his losing every single feather out of his tail; and a more lopsided and forlorn object than he looked, thus denuded, it is impossible to imagine. He was evidently continually on the look-out for any evidences of derision on the part of his hens, and when two or three got together in a corner, presumably to giggle over their lord’s misfortunes, he would put them to rout by vicious pecks, amid loud caeklings and squawkings. But the crowning touch was added to his ill-liumour when one of the hens fell ill of the same mysterious ailment, and lost all her tail feathers. This he regarded as a premeditated insult. To see bis own deformity mirrored in a subordinate svas more than comb and feathers could stand, and. so for more than a month he kept this unfortunate lady confined to tbe dark sleeping house, never allowing her to come into the run for a minute. If, when she heard the others gobbling up tfv ir food, she ventured to step timidly out from the little door, Turveydrop would ru?b up angrily and bust/e her back again, so that at last we had always to feed her separately in the sleeping house. When Turveydrop was not eating, or bullying this unhappy wife of his whose name, by-the-bye, was Mrs Jellaby he generally stood with his back to thewall, as if to imply that his tail was there all right, but that he chose to stand where you couldn’t see it. After about six weeks he recovered his tail, and to a certain extent his temper, and permitted Mrs Jellaby, who was also restored to health, to come forth once more to the light of day. Before I proceed to re'ate any further anecdotes of Turveydrop or his wives, 1 must introduce these ladies by name, and I will begin with the two who made themselves most conspicuous on every occasion Mesdames Gamp and Prig. These two were almost exactly alike—it was only by an extra white feather in Betsy Prig’s wing that you could distinguish them at all. They were both large, with untidy drooping combs, several conspicuous white feathers in. their wings a sign of ill-breeding in a Black Hamburg —small, clear eyes, and a general air of always having a gin - bottle under one wing. Betsy Prig, as I have said, had more white in her wings than Gamp, and was not quite so fat and comfortable looking. It need not be said that they were the greediest and the most forward of all hens. The great time to see them was when we were digging for worms in the run. Gamp and Priir would scuffle along after the spade, often going so far as to perch upon it, and always only just escaping by a miracle having their toes cub off. At. last they waxed so unbearable, and so entirely prevented the gentler ladies getting any worrifl at all, that while one of ns dug, the others were told off to keep a look-out on Gamp and Prig, and after they had had their fair share they were kept out of the way by means of shooing and waving and occasionally a resounding slap or two. They lorded the entire community, always excepting Turveydrop, of whom they stood in wholesome dread, until the arrival of two ladie3 of another breed, who were introduced into our happy family to act the part of mothers to the eggs which the black Ilamburgs laid, but refused to hatch. The first of these two was a stout greyish brown hen, across between a Brahma and a Dorking, whom we at once christened Mrs Jarley. During the time she was sitting upon the eggs she, of course, had nothing to do with the other hens. She lived for three weeks entirely banished from her kind, shut up in one of the houses, and hardly to be tempted off the nest for a few minutes to take some food. But when the chickens were hatched, the door of the house leading into the run was opened to give them and their mother light and air, a piece of wire netting being stretched across the opening to keep out the other hens. The very first day this was done we observed Gamp and Prig snorting defiance at Mrs Jarley from the other side of the wire, and after that they spent most of their time in insulting one another through the netting—Grmp and Prig apparently twitting Mrs Jarley with her imprisonment, and she retaliating by sneering at their unavailing efforts to get through the wire and obtain a share of the chickens’ boiled rice which they much coveted and which was kept in a dish temptingly within sight. It was tho funniest thing in the world to see these three walking up and down on opposite sides of the wire and occasionally making a vicious peck at one another through the meshes. Prig wa? the first to tire of this employment, and after a time left off bothering Mrs Jarley and returned to her ordinary avocationof trying to secure tho largest possible share of worms, barley, and greenstuff for herself; but Gamp kept it up until Mrs Jarley was allowed to lead forth her family. When this event happened Mrs Jarley proved her superiority over the other two in several short but decisive engagements, and was soon left in peace to look after the welfare of her chickens.

The other foreign hen was also brown, but not nearly such a stout, comfortable body as Mrs Jarley, and possessing rather a shrewish temper. We named her Peggobfcy, because somehow she looked like Peo go tty when she. first arrived, though she turned out not to be very like her in disposition. To return to* the black hens —Mrs Jellaby has been already mentioned. She was a Jong-necked and scraggy person, always untidy, always in a hurry, generally in the clouds, so that unless she was specially looked after and roused from her dreariis she would'come oft badly when the daily scrimmage for worms was going on. Our two favourites were the Marchioness and Esther Summerson, neat pretty little creatures, with small tidy combs, and not a white feather anywhere about them. They were extremely ladylike and well-behaved, and yet, in their quiet way, they always contrived to got quite their fair share of whatever was going on. It was delightful to see them dodging in and out round the spade while the ground was being turned up for worms, occasionally retiring into a corner with an immense fellow, to devour, it at their leisure, or to observe the delicate grace and agility with which they'would snatch a toothsome morsel from under the very beak of Gamp or Prig. , Tho three remaining ones didn’t seem to possess so much character as the foregoing, at all events they .never impressed their personality upon us in the same way—their names were Merry and Cherry; milder editions of Gamp and Prig, whom they very much.resembled in appearnneo, and Miss Miggs, a

nondescript kind of person, not particularly remarkable for anything. No, I mistake. Miss Miggs was remarkable for one thing—a great partiality for boots. Before I got used to the hens this taste of her’s embarrassed me greatly. She would follow one up and down, making dabs at one’s feet at intervals, or come up and peck at them when one was sitting down. Ofter have I fled from the run to escape her unwelcome attentions, for she would sometimes give a really hard dig which hurt even through one’s boots ; and if she was in a humour for boots she pursued her object with a quiet persistency which it was impossible to overcome. Whether it was that she liked the taste of blacking, or that she could see herself reflected in the boots,l do not know. One of these two reasons must have had something to do with it, I think, for canvas shoes had no charm for her. She was also extremely tame, in a stupid, blundering kind of fashion. One day I took two small children into the run To my amazement the first thing they did was each to make a dash at a pen. lam glad to say they didn’t pitch upon Gamp or Prig, or either of those ladies would certainly have pecked them viciously. To my still greater amazement, they each caught their bird, and proceeded to nurse it as you would a kitten, the hens, after a momentary struggle, submitting quite quietly. Suddenly there was a squawk and a whir of wings, and to my horror, Miss Migge flew up on to my shoulder knocking my hat off in the process, and I had the greatest difficulty in dislodging her from that, for me, extremely uncomfortable position. I suppose she thought she had as much right to be nursed as the other two. They were all tame enough to eat out of one’s hand, and if one held out a handful of grain or a worm they would crowd round h, bustling and shoving one another. Mrs Jarley’s great distinction was that she would jump for worni3. If one was held a little above her head she would crane her neck up, and jump about a foot into the air to try and get it. I always felt rather disrespectful when I made her do this trick, however. She was such a dignified looking hen, with an air of being old enough to be one’s mother, that it seemed rather wanting in the respect due to age to force the poor old lady to make a gymnastic display of herself. However, 1 must say she was a most active old person in every way. Heavy and solid as 3he looked, she could fly very well—much too well, indeed, as we found out to our cost. We noticed in the autumn, after her chickens were all grown up and she was freed from her maternal responsibilities, that our cabbages appeared to suffer from the ravages of some one possessed of a sharp beak, buc we could net find out which of the hens it was, as we never noticed any of them attempt to fly over the high wire foncing. But one morning, coming out into the garden somewhat earlier than usual, we observed a pretty figure outlined against the sky on the top of the hen-house. To our astonishment this proved to bo Mrs Jarley, who, not perceiving us, took a leisurely promenade to the corner of the house, flew down into the garden, and in an equally leisurely and dignified manner proceeded to make for the cabbage bed. In the chase which followed, however, most of her dignity vanished, and she scuttled hither and thither, squawking loudly and behaving as foolishly as the scatter-brained Mrs Jellably would have done under the same circumstances. Finally she was caught and her wing clipped, and from that day she took no more matutinal walks on the roof.

Hens are certainly in some ways the stupidest of creatures, and the most obsti nate; not even a mule can beat them in this latter respect, I think. Our hens were provided with three comfortable laying baskets, all exactly alike, and all fitted with nice clean straw. The first thing they did was to scratch the straw out of two of these, and push them up into a corner, and though we brought them out several times it was no good—they refused to have anything at all to do with them, and in the course of a day or two we found them up in the corner again. The consequence was that the one basket which was left was in great demand, and it was quite a common thing to see two, or even three, of the smaller hens wedged in, head and tail, like a puzzle; two perched on the edge of the basket waiting for their turn, and one or two more sitting on the perchee. They evidently arranged the order of priority among themselves, for there was never any disputing about the basket; the second pair took the place of the first quite quietly, and then generally those who had been on the perches came and sat on the basket, so as to be ready when their turn came. There used to be a great squash when stout Mrs Jarley and one of the others were in the basket at the same time. I once saw her and Mrs Jellnby in possession together, Mrs Jellaby almost concealed under Jarley's fluffy, grey feathers. The former was ready first, and wanted to get put—a matter of considerable difficulty ; there were great heavings and wrigglings, and many squawks from poor Mrs Jellaby, for Jarley, who resented being disturbed, pecked the poor thing whenever she could get at her. Finally, with one gigantic heave, she escaped and fled into the run, leaving Jarley to spread herself out in proud possession of the basket, for none of the others dared to disturb her. I’eggotty was the only one who tried to get a place in the basket out of her turn. I have seen her try hard to push another hen out or squeeze herself in when there were already two or three occupants. Once, as she couldn’t get really into the basket, she calmly sat down on the top of the others, and laid an egg on the back of one of them, which made the rush for the basket greater, and we often used to find six or seven eggs early in the afternoon. There was one day—a day to bo marked with a white stone —on which every one of them laid, and ten beautiful eggs were disclosed to our admiring gaze. One of them --we never discovered which, had a very curious aberration m the middle of the summer. There were five eggs altogether that day—four of them quite normal—the fifth just as big as a starling’s egg! It 1 looked exceedingly funny lying among the others in the basket.

The second spring we prepared two beau tiful sittings of eggs, one for Mrs Jarley, the other tor Peggotty, and then waited until they showed disposition to sit. This, however’, they steadily refused to do. March, April, and May passed. Jarley and Peggotty continued to enjoy their pleasant, existence, and to eat their heads off without showing the slightest desire to do their duty. We were in despair. At last, at the beginning of June, a kind neighbour,, who had heard of our predicament, volunteered to lend us a sitting hen. ‘ I shall be delighted to get rid of her for a time,’ he said, in answer to our expressions of gratitude, ‘ for she has been persistently endeavouring to sit ; for more than two months, and as I have an incubator which is turning out about a hundred chickens every three weeks or so I have no need for her services.’ The hen, a gigantic Langsban, arrived in due course, and was installed, on her fifteen eggs. When she had been there for about ten days, Peggotty suddenly said she wanted to sit too, w'hich . was extremely inconvenient of her, as we were obliged to put her and the Langslran in the same house, and we were afraid they might quarrel and

disturb one another. However, we rigged up a partition between the two nests, which were prepared in an old box laid on its side (it will be seen that ours was not a model hen yard, boasting of all the latest scientific appliances), and as they could not see one another they sat there side by side peaceably enough till the Langshan’e chickens were hatched. A few days after this I noticed that Peggotty began to look rather wild and dishevelled, and then once or twice I discovered her parading about the house instead of sitting on her eggs. This conduct required explanation, so i set to work to watch, as I thought she must get disturbed in some way. I soon found that my suspicions were only too well grounded. On opening the door of the house which Peggotty and the Langshan shared between them, about six o’clock one evening. Peggotty was nowhere to be seen, but in her compartment, and on her nest, were the Langshan and her twelve chickens. I looked again—there was a slight convulsion under the ponderous black mass of the Langshan, a brown head darted out, and gave a vicious peck at a chicken which was near. For a moment I could do nothing but gasp, as the truth dawned upon me—the Langshan and all her chickens were in the habit of spending the night on the top of the hapless Peggotty, probably finding her and her nest a good deal warmer than their own compartment next door. During tho time that I stood thero paralysed with astonishment Peggotty continued to peck at any of the chickens she could reach, and was pecked at in turn by the Langshan. It was certainly no wonder that the poor thing seemed agitated after a night spent in that fashion. When I recovered £ proceeded at j once to try to dislodge the intruder—a matter of some time and difficulty, as she kicked, ancl pecked, and wriggled, and Peggotty did the same, so that I was afraid some of the eggs might get broken or the little chickens trodden upon in the struggle. However, it was done at last, and Peggotty was securely barricaded up fot tho night to the Langshan’s great disgust. But, unfortunately, the mischief was done. Peggotty's mind had been thoroughly unsettled by these nightly visitations, ancl the next day she was again discovered airily walking about on the top of her box, her eggs perfectly cold. This happened several times, and at last she entirely refused to go back again, so the eggs had to be thrown away. As for Peggotty herself, she was killed shortly after this and eaten. And oh, how tough she was ! In this respect she was excolled only by Gamp and Prig, who almost transcended the bounds of possibility in the direction of toughness. Turveydrop would probably have been as bad, or worse, if cooked in any ordinary manner, but we wisely, following a cookery book receipt for cooking ‘an old fowl,'' had him boiled and stewed, and stewed and boiled, and then made into a fearful and wonderful sort of jellied mould, in which form he was quite unrecognisable, and rather good. I am afraid most people think us rather like cannibals for eating our fowls, after we have got to know them so well, but one must look at these things from a practical point of view, and unless one wishes to keep fowls at a dead loss they must be killed off before they get old, i.e., if one has young ones ready to supply their place. And Ido not suppose the most humane person would advocate such a waste of good food as would be involved in burying them in the garden. Besides, really a fowl as he appears at table bears so remote a resemblance to the same creature running about i’i the lien-yard, though one may dilate with gratitude on the tenderness and delicacy of .Snodgrass or Winkle, or with sadness on the toughness of Gamp or Frig, one cannot realise that one is eating an old acquaintance. Nor does ono miss them, after a short time, in the hen-yard, where young ones, with new characteristics to be studied, new foibles to be laughed at, are growing up and enjoying themselves while they may At one time, before the original TurvCy drop was slain, wo had four cocks altogether. The other three were christened Snodgrass, Tupman and Winkle. Snodgrass was a very amiable young cock, and went his own way, without interfering with anybody ; but Tupman and Winkle were continually fighting, and as Tupman always came off victor in these contests, we determined to keep him, as being the better man, and to slay the other two young ones and Turveydrop. The hens had two sleeping houses, and up to the time of Turvevdrop’s decease he and about nine of his favourite hens, occu pied one, which we named the 4 Upper House,’ and most of the younger hens the other. If Tupman ever ventured into Turveydrop’s domain he was at once ignominiously expelled by that patriarch. But the very first night after Turveydrop’s mysterious disappearance, to our great amusement we saw Tupman march pompously into the ‘ Upper House,’ and on looking in. found him in the act of taking possession of Turveydrop’s old place in the left hand corner of the top perch, having pushed a presumptuous hen who was sitting there on the floor. From that day he began to look so exactly like his lamented parent that it was decided to change his name from Tupman to Turveydrop 11. : and a little later we settled the reigning being shouldalways bear the dynastic name of Turveydrop. At this moment Turveydrop 111. is on the throne, Turveydrop 11. having been lately forced to abdicate in favour of the Crown Prince. He was ‘ removed ’ because for some unexplained reason • his second crop of feathers came white instead of black, and ho looked so very ugly and so very ill-bred that we could not tolerate him in our select society. We were told by a kind friend when we first started our fowls that our eggs would cost us half-a-crown a piece, and though we hare not found this to be strictly accurate, yet certainly amateur fowl-keeping —unless you have time to devote to the creatures—is perhaps m re interesting and amusing than exactly profitable. Still, the pleasure of watching their ways, and the joy of eating one’s own eggs, which, of course, taste superior to all other eggs, more than strike the balance in the narrow calculation of profit and loss, and then one always believes that they will pay some day.