Henny's latest Squawk

Henny Pulse, Deputy Squawker for the Associated Cluckfusters Collective, is all a’flutter about the proposed Special Henhouse Areas.

Your humble scribe interviewed her on the background. Henny, resplendent in polished wattles and her customary bright pink legband, came out firing.

‘Why’, she warbled, ‘there just hasn’t been enough thought given to the infrastructure needs of new Henhouses. Nesting materials, for example. Without a prior delivery of this material, no SHA can possibly be started. So, it’s simply the Responsible thing to do, to demand a commitment from those pushing the SHA’s, to stump up with nesting and other materials. So, along with my fellow Cluckfusters, we just won’t permit any new henhouses until this happens.’

Assuming the royal ‘we’, we then asked Henny what about the issue of Homeless Fowls, and the recent wave of immigrants from Other Farms, attracted by our local culture, the prospect of free-range dwelling, and the not incidental prospect of massive Nest-price Gains (non-taxable).

‘Oh, them’, she waved an arm dismissively. ‘Well, we already have a HenHousing Unitary Plan for that lot. It’s taken years and years to get this to the starting point, we have a whole team devoted to it, the grey-leg-banded ones. We call them the ClusterFlock.

The Plan envisages that we just stack a whole bunch of little cages up into the sky and invite these new flocks to take up residence. No need for new HenHouse Areas at all. Why, on a Good day, they can, with some effort, turn around in their tiny piece of real estate, and see the Sea!’.

At this point, a very Flustered PR Flackbird flew in, alighted on Penny’s back, took a mouthful of wattle and a right old henfight ensued.. The upshot of which was that ‘cages’, hutches’, ‘battery fowl’ and any mention of square centimeters per fowl were deemed ‘prohibited speech’ and were to be stricken from the record. The replacement phrase was, evidently, to be ‘sustainable sky-home’.

Armed with this sitrep, your scribe then turned to the Head Farm Rooster – a rare bird, sporting matching Blue and Green legbands, and asked for his reaction.

‘Henny, I regret to say, he intoned, ‘is on a hiding to nothing. Not only do the CluckFusters lay enough eggs to buy all the nesting material they need, but they actively sustain a nest-banking industry by dribbling out new-nest permits at a frankly appallingly low rate. This keeps the nest pricing structure way out of whack with eggs-per-day income possibilities. So, it’s up to them.

And, anyway, as Farm Management, we can overrule this shed any old time we feel like it. But which, to be perfectly honest, we don’t want to do. There may indeed have to be a few Omelettes, to teach this sorry flock their place in the pecking order. But you’re not ever gonna see any Blue-legband clawmarks on any of those broken eggs…..’

'We prefer to let Nature to take it's course. Red in tooth and claw, isn't that the way?'