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)
Gordon, 78, Gateshead
We had a stray chicken. We never kept any ourselves but we had a stray that would come up the stairs and sit in front of the hearth. You know, like one of them big open fires. It would just sit there in front of the fire it until it decided where it wanted to go next. It didn't belong to us like, but it definitely took a fancy to us. When me father went out for a drink, the chicken would follow him home from the club and into the house. He was its guardian.
Miriam, Heworth
We were kids. Times were hard up - we could afford toys so we had hens instead. We had a budgie too so they would natter at each other.
Ken, Heworth
It's funny - a lot of people kept hens when I was young. I don't know why but it's gone out of fashion a bit now. Nearly everybody had hens - because allotments and that were big things. People had big gardens... a vegetable garden and kept hens. It was amazing how many people kept hens in those days - I suppose it was just for the eggs in those days. It was during the war and pre-war. The eggs were important to local people, but they don't seem to be as important now. My father in law was a great hen man. I just fed them sometimes, there wasn't much to do.
Joyce, Pelaw
They're lovely. When we decided to get the hens we got them in a hut outside. They let us handle them and we love them. We have two cages now. In Wood Green Gateshead. We have two or three men who clean up and they're great. They've all got a name the hens, Doreen, Pam and Jenny....
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