So you may or may not already know we have an eco-retreat/biosanctuary/regenerative and experimental farm?  

Yes, that is what Damon and I mostly do these days and we absolutely LOVE it.

Right, so okay… a few months back we took the plunge and introduced some very precious chickens to the Banana circles.  We really do Love how much people are interested in our bananas, and we can’t believe ourselves how well they are doing. We are officially banana farmers… but have not yet actually sold any fruit. Plans are afoot though, so please stay tuned on all that.

How much detail should I share, it is such a HUGE story.  I will try and give you an abridged version.

Here goes.

Went to Birdbarn out in Henderson about a dozen times to check out chooks over the last couple of years.  A few months ago I met two sweet little speckled Peking Bantams.  They were so cute I called Damon and asked if we could have them.  He very rationally said I had to once again ask our team (Penny and Dave) as they’d be doing most of the care as we are always on the go.

Checked in with the team, and we’d already been chatting for months so it was a yes.  

Paid (a king’s ransom – designer chickens are not cheap) for two little cutie chooks and landed Damon back in action mode as it fell on him to arrange a coop before the girls moved in.

The two sisters were named Nina and Simone.  The gentle (human) brother who co-owns and manages the bird barn told me that Simone was very thin and he would be surprised if she lasted the week.  I explained this to everyone and we were all prepared for her demise.

Simone actually lasted nearly two months under the watchful care of the team, and we found her one Autumn morning in the corner of her coop, and I am quite certain she passed peacefully in her sleep.  I was still very sad.

So, now with only one lonely chicken I had to find a solution for, back to Bird Barn went I.

Damon, being the seriously sensible lad that he is insisted we get a couple of Red Shavers along with the two designer Silkies I wanted.  Shavers are layers.  Silkies and Bantams are pets who occasionally lay.

So four more feathered friends found their footing at the farm.

Penny our Kaitiaki (guardian and manager) at the farm, along with Damon, decided to name the two young silkies Henny (the lighter grey bird) and Penny (The black bird).  The confusion that would arise from this one decision is ongoing, but also quite a source of lols so we are all good.  Human Penny and Rooster Penny (that is right, we found out several weeks after they both arrived that the black silky was a rooster not a chook) are both the boss in their own ways around the farm.  

The two large Red Shavers were called Anne and Diana after Lucy Maud Montgomery classic series “Anne of Green Gables” and they are to this day the friendlies fowl on the farm.  They were hatched in an incubator and hand raised at Birdbarn by the two brothers and their team.  We like Birdbarn.  While we probably are not huge fans of domestication of brilliant birds and animals, they clearly care about their customers and the pets they raise.  

So, fast forward through the storming, norming, conforming, performing phases of the lovely chicken drama and it became clear that Nina had her feathers in a fluff.  We found her mottled feathers all over the coop and she was clearly getting pecked.  Nina was NOT about to give up her position as queen of coop though.  NO sir.  And as Penny (fowl) began to mature into a hansome snack of a rooster, Nina got more and more jealous of the bond between Henny and Penny.

So one day Penny (human) popped into their pen for her daily visit and Henny was a heap.  Couldn’t move.  

So she let us know and we asked her to take her to the Vet.

The vet, clearly an animal lover, but not a poultry expert, gave her antibiotics and vitamins and said that perhaps in anything from one to six weeks she would be up and running around again with proper care.

Poor Penny (human) and Henny (grey silky) then embarked on a harrowing journey of round the clock care.  Hand fed water, vitamins, supplements and food, Henny barely moved for days and was a messy chook in need of a couple of baths a day.  She loves the hair dryer though, so that’s a cute little bright side to this long and sordid tale.

For 9 days Penny (human) toiled with the tender chook.

On Monday I arrived home (after commissioning chicken diapers from my wonderfully witchy seamstress friend Jo) to relieve Penny (human) from her burden.

That chicken went everywhere with her.  And even in the two days I have had her in my care I have seen huge improvement in her leg mobility and motor skills.  She’s still a lopsided little lady who cannot stand at all at this point though.

So.  

Here we are up to date on Tuesday the 25^th of June 2024.

Henny has had a couple of baths, eaten several times on her own but mostly been hand fed and watered with a small syringe.  

Now, here’s the thing.  I grew up on a farm in the 1980’s and 1990’s and witnessed unspeakable cruelties to every manner of animal.  From the cows to the chickens to the farm cats (those were the days my grandfather would think nothing of tossing a sack of unwanted kittens in the creek).  So, as life has come full circle and I am now the co-owner of a my own damned farm, I do not have the same philosophy as I witnessed growing up.  

That childhood farm was a traditional monoculture operation, heavy handed on herbicides and fertilisers.  I cannot and do not have any beef or bones to pick about methods at that time.  As the Magnificent Goddess Maya Angelou said:  “Do the best you can with what you know, and when you know better, do better…”

We have had testing on our waterways done and it is one of the cleanest, and most brimming with life in the whole North Island according to the team who test it. And our native birds and the eels and fresh water crayfish in the creeks will tell you we prioritise them if you ever plan to visit. We are not experts at any of this, but we are focused on nourishing our soils and creating and protecting space for the natural inhabitants who have been there long before we arrived.

So we are not dogmatic or preachy in our methodology or morality.  We left stressful city slicker jobs to live the dream on our 50 acres.  As we are firmly established in the tourism sector now we also get to spend a lot of our time (when not parenting on our rotations with the exes) researching other tourism offerings and improving our own.  Visiting farms, forests, retreats, resorts and spas all over the planet is grueling work for these two founders, but you’ll likely never meet two such dedicated and passionate workers in their chosen profession as Damon and I.

Seriously. We are so impressed with the warmth and sincerity of tourism operators everywhere who are generous with sharing their knowledge and experience.

Damon works with the best of the best advisors, contractors and designers and has improved the farm over the last five years so it is absolutely unrecognizable.  We make enough revenue on our eco-tourism product on the whenua to pay our tiny but dedicated team and carry on with improvements.  

But our animals are pretty much pets.  Anne and Diana (red shavers) are currently laying more than an egg a day on average over winter. We had our builder and gate keeper (he is very protective of us, and I cherish that after being screwed over by many a manipulative meanie in my old life) design and build a chook manor for the birds.  Seriously you would roll your eyes so hard if I told you what these chickens have cost us.  But they are happy, healthy and absolutely contributing to the health and narrative on the farm.  They live and play under banana ferns and our crop on the side they live is off the chain.  They are doing important nitrogen fixing work for us.

However, even the most beloved of pets can be called to cross the rainbow bridge.

The fact is, although she is getting better (albeit at a glacial pace) and does not appear to be in pain, I do not feel that she will be with us for much longer.

I’m taking her to a poultry specialist in St. Lukes after two visits to the vet in Warkworth while we were away and Penny was caring for her.

 In all honesty, I have no idea how any vet could have sent her home in the state she is in.  

We took her back to Henderson to see the brothers who run the Birdbarn.  Unforunately, despite constant care Henny is disastrously underweight.  I’ve been offering her food constantly and sometimes she willingly takes it and sometimes she has to be coaxed.

The best he could guess is that poor Henny had a massive stroke after being brutally bullied by the very jealous alpha chook Nina. 

This is life/nature and the reason we have a term for “pecking order” in most languages and vernaculars.

As sweet and lovely as Henny is, and as much as I want for her to get better, I definitely don’t agree with the vet’s call to send her home in such a state and feel that they ought to have made a call to put her down.

HOWEVER.

Here we are, nearly two weeks in, and even in the couple of days I have had her she has shown much more movement in her legs and feet.  She still can’t stand on her own and flops over unsupported, but when I collected her she had a completely floppy foot that is now moving independently when we pick her up.

So.  That’s the story on the chickens so far.

Few people would ever hold out hope for such a severe case, but Penny (human) saw that Henny was a fighter and was willing to stick by her.

Tomorrow at 4pm we are getting her assessed again, for the third time (appointments start at $100 a pop plus add in medicines etc.) and my sense is that the prognosis will be not to prolong the plucky little poultry princess’s battle any further.

But if she stands a chance we will keep fighting with for her to get her back on her cute little chicken feet.

So, that’s my story of being a not very sensible farmer.

Saying this, I have to admit, I regret nothing.  There has not been a project on the planet I have felt more invigorated by or appreciated in doing.

Hope this was a sage story for those of you thinking of chucking in corporate or city lifestyles to move out to the country and live your best life.  It’s not simple or economically sensible in all sincerity.  But we would never EVER even consider changing our trajectory at this point.

Thanks for reading.