Our native hens - the two adults adopted our property almost a year ago now.

Here's a photo of the native hen family - Honka, the male, Tonka the female and the two chicks - one of which is rather attached to me. All four come when I call out "meep meep meep!". It is difficult to express in the pic, as they're all puffing themselves out, but Honka is at the back, Tonka the front (both outside the water), the chick who is attached to me is closest, and the other chick is furthest. How can I tell? Feathers, markings and size. Honka and Tonka have the smoothest feathers, Honka has white markings on his feathers, both chicks have rough feathers - "my chick" Hanka has a few feathers sticking out at odd angles and the other Tanka has some odd feathers too, and both are slightly smaller than the other two native hens.

They did have three baths to use - but I nicked one for my cranberry bush, and the other day I took the other one to use to feed my new Khaki Campbell ducks (they require water on top of their food so they just have to sink their bills into the water to gobble up the food).

I've been ill lately, so haven't been able to give the native hens the attention they deserve - apparently they've been wandering around a little lost! I normally feed them a handful or two my horse's feed pellets a couple of times a day, as well as putting water in the buckets. They are of course wild, and feed and water themselves - but they only have access to their dam at the bottom of our property once a day - they go there to sleep at night, before running up to the horse paddock in the morning to eat the horse's dropped pellets and lucerne or oaten chaff. Throughout the day they feed off the grass in the paddocks.

The reason why I've been giving them food and water lately is that it has not rained in months, therefore there is no green grass for them to feed off, and gain moisture from as well. There truly is little food for them to eat. So, I spoil them. They make for a lovely bit of nature on our doorstep, and since they adopted our property we have been thoroughly entertained on a daily basis by their antics!

OH! We also have two massive ravens/crows who get along well with the native hens - and have been around for years. Recently, two kookaburras have taken up residence here also, and I do indeed believe they will be having little laughing chickies soon!

Labels: native hen, native hens