In 1980, when I was 17, I spent the long summer between school and university in Hertfordshire as a mother's help caring for two toddlers and a new baby, assisting with housework and gardening, and tending a large flock of bantam hens. Though I loved the children, my heart was lost to the speckled Hamburg and the light Sussex and I hoped one day to have chooks of my own. So when my girls were young, we got four bovans nera chickens, excellent hybrids for beginner poultry keepers like us. Oh, the joy of our very own fresh eggs!
We've owned many hens since - some young chickens like these pullets who arrived at point of lay (around 20 weeks old) and very old chickens like this black Orpington who was blind and came to us after being bullied at her previous home.
We've housed rescue hens like Mrs Beaky who've recovered with us and thrived and we've had fancy-dancy breeds like Welsummers and Bluebells who were just too, well, fancy-dancy to lay many eggs!
Yes, over the years we've shared our garden with lots of chickens!
Look closer and you'll see an unusual grey hen in each of these pictures. She came to us in 2008 we think - but no one's actually sure. She was hatched by a broody belonging to my friend Anna who called her 'Fast Hen' because she was so hard to catch. Neither of us can remember why she came to live with us in the first place.
This is Yoda - and a more bad tempered, flighty, screechy biddy it would be hard to find. I LOVED her!
Reticent to feed from my hand, she would frequently sneak in the back door and help herself to the cat's food behind my back. Pecking order's a real thing - the dog (and the dog before her) knew to give her a wide berth.
She made it her life's mission to hide all her eggs from me. Having araucana somewhere in her genetics meant she laid a pale blue egg so it was apparent if she was laying in the nesting box or not. Usually it was 'or not' and I'd eventually find a clutch of her eggs hidden away in the bushes or even in the outdoor cat house on more than one occasion!
Yoda was also part silkie which accounted for her frequent spells of broodiness and made her even more screechy and bad tempered than ever. We don't keep a cockerel so she'd sit on her sterile eggs for weeks and weeks, only leaving the nest briefly each day to feed and produce one enormous, and extremely offensive, poop!
In 2009, whilst broody, we obtained six hatching eggs for her and built a nursery pen. (Hatching eggs come from breeders who keep cockerels and hens together deliberately for rearing purposes.)
Four of the eggs hatched and Yoda proved to be an excellent mum,
tolerating the chicks antics, keeping her brood under her wing and caring for them until they were as big as herself!
But what she will be most remembered for is appearing at the kitchen window for a treat.
After living with us for over 11 years, I noticed she was under the weather a week ago. I moved her to 'hen hospital' and took her outside with me to enjoy the sun with my morning cuppa.
Rest in peace Yoda, you feistiest of all chickens, the force was strong with you.
