Spice up your life
It’s been a tough year for hens, the first bout of avian flu finally fizzled out back in March when the migratory birds went home and took it back from whence it came. Recently the damn foreigners have returned to our shores complete with the flu again. This time its more virulent and the government have been forced to put a restraining order on all poultry owners, domestic and commercial. it’s not quite an ASBO but they are not allowed to free range and roam the garden causing destruction in their wake.
All birds have to be kept indoors and covered over to prevent the flu from falling from the sky in solid form from the bum of the visitors, Much to the disgust and whinging of team hen, we think they will be safe and free from lurgy. The faces of the little things looking wistfully up at the hen mummy caused the desired effect and a little treat was sought to pacify the little darlings.
Mr Googlywoogly summoned a small tub of ‘Poultry Spice’ and after consulting the instructions, we added a ‘pinch and a half’ per bird per day. This takes up to forty minutes a day when time could be better spent doing domestic tasks such as a full English or polishing the dog. After a couple of days of this and no breakfast I decided to look at the internet to see if there was a better way of applying the spice. Some oddball suggested getting them to snort it from a bit of glass one at a time but to me, that would take so much longer. The only spare glass we have is a mirror, those hens are incredibly vain and would spend their time looking at themselves, pouting like a selfie obsessed modern day pompous 20-year-olds.
Anyway, I digress as I worked through the list of alternatives, I read the ingredients and was impressed, vitamins, minerals and aniseed, a good healthy combination for ungrateful hens. One writer suggested wiping the spice on the bird by hand all over the body. That seemed a good idea but when I asked for a volunteer, they were all far too busy doing their nails and makeup to mess around with my game.
I managed to catch Betty Bottom hen and took her to conservatory and settled in for what I knew would not be an easy day. She wriggled and squiggled, complained and pooed on my lap but I persisted. Eventually after much swearing and background noise in the form of Noddy Holder reminding me I need to get some beers in, the task was complete. Poor Betty stunk of aniseed, I put her back in the run and prepared to catch another.
Whilst this was going on I observed the hen mummy was rolling around on the sofa with tears running down her face, I stopped what I was doing and rushed (well hobbled and staggered) back indoors enquiring whether the mushrooms and egg had bitten her. It seems the instructions on the Googlywoogly were ambiguous, When it said you had to rub the poultry spice all over the bird it had taken the request in a literal sense. The hen was now rubbed in aniseed flavoured powder but after putting on my reading glasses I realised this was the instructions for putting a chicken in the oven, had I read further it said I also should stick an onion up its bum. It’s not been a good day so far, it took me hours to wash the spice off poor Betty, she is definitely not oven ready as her mates pointed out at some length.
The moral of the story I feel is that one should buy products with instructions in large type and don’t I repeat don’t use the Googlywoogly without using reading glasses. Meanwhile they are locked into their enclosure gathered around the mirror preening and looking vain as usual. I hate hens, they always have you over!
John F Bennett, Author, Blogger and Military Historian 