"Charlie Pridham" wrote in message
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message

Between 8 and twelve is what we expected, cause of death was nearly
always a
internal swelling, and hens do dead in style they always seemed to
be on the
ground with their feet in the air!

I can picture it - they do just that! But that comment reminds me of
that ancient joke about the randy rooster.

The new rooster goes qucikly to work in the way that roosters do and
his acts of virility amaze the chookkeeper.

The next morning the owner comes out to find the rooster lying on his
back with his legs in the air with a crow circling low overhead.

Rushing up to see how his poor rooster died, the owner bends over only
to have the rooster whisper, "Go away - once that crow lands I'll have
my way with him".

Fox got the last of them a few years back and we have not replaced
them as
most of my lot are not able to eat egg and would you believe garden
visitors
were for the most part very reluctant to enter the orchard if there
were
hens there (also stopped the scrumping by local kids :~)

???? Were they worried that the chooks would attack them or
something????

BTW, you know I promised you I'd do a post about gardening in the heat
of an Australian summer just to relieve your winter gloomies? The
heat hasn't really hit yet, but I went to a birthday party last night
for a British born friend and her whole family was out from the UK to
help celebrate - must have been at least 8 of them and I thought of
you. One of the Brit rels is the most vivacious and gogeous looking,
drop dead lovely and faintly exotic woman. Of the hundred or so
people there, she was the only one with a tan. All the Australian
women there were white and avoid the sun like the plague but she'd
been doing the Barmy Army thing and basking at the cricket so she
could go back to London with a tan. She was complaining about our
local overcast weather whilst all us locals were thankful for the
chance to garden in relative comfort even if the clouds don't drop
rain.