Practical Poultry Magazine No.120 Cochin buying Back Issue

We’re always emphasising the
importance and all-round
usefulness of spending time
with your chickens, simply
watching how they behave both individually
and as a group. It’s one of the simplest
and easiest things you can do, and should
typically be one of the most pleasurable, too.
One of the best times to do this is fi rst
thing in the morning, immediately after
you’ve let your birds out for their fi rst fl ap
and stretch of the day. The other morning,
having done just this, I was busy enjoying my
peaceful, fi ve-minute interlude as the hens
clucked contentedly. Some were drinking,
some feeding and others pecking at the
dewy grass, but one of the hybrid layers
caught my eye as she stood lustily pecking at
the pellets in our Grandpa’s feeder.
All of a sudden she stopped eating,
raised her head and stood, bolt upright
and perfectly still. Then, without appearing
to move a muscle or changing her body
position to any degree, she slowly raised
one foot off the ground, bent her leg and
tucked it tight up against her body. Not
a particularly spectacular gesture, I will
admit, but the thing that struck me was her
effortless ability to balance.
I know fl amingoes do it all the time, and
I’ve taken many photographs of chickens
standing on one leg over the years, but it was
just the smooth, almost mechanical way
this one did it that so caught my attention. It
was as though the leg she raised had been
carrying no weight in the fi rst place, and that
lifting it made absolutely no difference to
the way she was standing.
Ah well, I suppose the hen’s fancy
footwork simply serves to confi rm just how
wonderful nature is, and I feel priviledged
to have seen this tiny, insignifi cant
demonstration of it in my own back garden.