Hen Stories
Below you can find stories that the HenPower Hensioners have compiled about hen keeping from the war years until now. Use the category filters to look at specific stories.
- Accidents (61)
- Advice (2)
- Allotments (3)
- Animals (1)
- Backyard (1)
- Backyard Beginners (10)
- Backyard Chicken Keepers (57)
- Bangladesh (1)
- Bantams (1)
- Battery Hens (2)
- Berwick (1)
- Birtley (1)
- Breeder (1)
- Breeding (23)
- Breeds (24)
- Business (2)
- Catching And Cooking (15)
- Cats (1)
- Characteristics (2)
- Chicken Adoption (1)
- Chicken Drama (1)
- Chicken Memories (3)
- Chickens And Dogs (5)
- Chicks (6)
- Childhood (31)
- Children (11)
- Christmas (6)
- Cleaning (3)
- Cockerel (7)
- Community (20)
- Competition (3)
- Cooking (7)
- Coop (1)
- Costs (1)
- Country Living (2)
- Dairy Farming (1)
- Depression Years (2)
- Disaster (1)
- Dogs (1)
- Duck (1)
- Education (1)
- Eggs (33)
- Ex Batteries (3)
- Family (50)
- Farm (3)
- Farm Life (13)
- Farms (1)
- Father Son (2)
- Feeding (2)
- Feisty Fowl (2)
- Fight (1)
- First Jobs (1)
- Food (14)
- Foot Mouth (1)
- Fowl Fiascos (14)
- Fox Attacks (1)
- Free Range (2)
- Friendly Fowl (19)
- Funny Fowl (2)
- Games (1)
- Gateshead (4)
- Geese (1)
- Generations (1)
- Great Escapes (14)
- Hatching (6)
- Heads (2)
- Health (2)
- Helping (1)
- Hen Feed (1)
- Hen History (1)
- Hen Houses (9)
- Hen Welfare (1)
- Henployment (6)
- Hill Farmer (1)
- Hobby (12)
- Home Remedies (1)
- Incubators (4)
- Innards And Out (1)
- Judging (6)
- Lay Experts (20)
- Laying (1)
- Mischief (17)
- Modernisation (1)
- Morpeth (1)
- Mr Fox (6)
- Names (12)
- Necking (5)
- Newcastle (1)
- North Tyneside (1)
- Northumberland (1)
- Observing (2)
- Online (1)
- Pampered Poultry (1)
- Pecking (7)
- Pecking Stories (1)
- Pensioners (1)
- Personalities (12)
- Petting Farm (1)
- Plucking (1)
- Plucky Poultry (26)
- Poorly Poultry (4)
- Poultry Club (1)
- Poultry Pals (5)
- Poultry Parents (1)
- Poultry Passing (3)
- Poultry Passing On (2)
- Poultry Pets (38)
- Poultry Shows (17)
- Prizes (2)
- Proffesionals (1)
- Rationing (6)
- Rehoming (1)
- Relaxation (1)
- Rescue (11)
- Routine (1)
- Rural Life (2)
- School (1)
- Self Sufficiency (12)
- Selling (2)
- Set Ups (1)
- Showing (10)
- Small Holding (1)
- Social (2)
- Standards (5)
- Stockton (4)
- Style (1)
- Sustainability (18)
- Therapeutic (1)
- War Years (10)
- Wellbeing (1)
- Wing Clipping (1)
- Winning (1)
- Wish Bones (1)
- Working With Poultry (1)
- Yorkshire (1)
- Younger Generation (1)
Richard Toward
I'm involved in breeding and showing just for the sport of it. My family always had hens but I was the first one to show. Although my great-grandfather showed so i suppose it's in my blood and just came naturally. I just got it in my head one day and now I'm addicted.
The first one I hatched and reared was a cross-bred that won nothing! It was a silke cross. But you're going back a long way trying to remember that.... I've been keeping my own since I was 10 and i'm 23 now.
My first show was in the May when I was about 17. It was nerve wracking but I won every class I was in. I don't like being beaten so it became an obsession. You just have to have the best. Winning reserve champion was probably my highlight so far.
Charlie Simpson, Carlisle
It's a hobby, I have 27. I haven't all of my life... I don't know how it began really, I just started keeping them. I thought we may as well have our own free range eggs - we have plenty customers for them. I have 2 different breeds - barnevelders and welsummers. I don't name them, there are far too many for that.
They're not that hard to look after. Just food and clean water every day and then you have them to clean out once a week and all that. It's something to do when you've retired. So you go out in the morning and feed and water them, and then I maybe go down later in the afternoon and then when it gets dark I go down and shut them in... cos Mr Fox comes along. So i've got to fasten them in of a night.
I come to the shows just as a matter of interest. I like to come and see what's in the boxes, what's being shown. I wouldn't show myself though - I shouldn't say I haven't time, because I have time... but no, I've never fancied showing myself. It's a lot of commitment.
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