What I See with Peter Fiorenza: Friends’ backyard chooks reminds us of the simpler things in life

Their names are Emma, Lucy, Mia and Mikayla. Who are they? The names could easily be the four members of a girl band, an European royal family, or even stable names for some young fillies. But they’re not. They are instead the names of Deb and Mark’s chooks. Deb and Mark are good friends of mine, who recently decided to become suburban poulterers. Both have recently retired, so they saw this as something that would help keep them busy. So, Deb went fully into the researching such a challenge. Firstly, there was the information available on the net, followed by chatting to other poulterers, along with some well-known seasoned farmers. Questions had to be answered. How many chooks should they have? What type of chooks would suit them best? And what should they be housed in? According to Mark, Deb wasn’t going to have just any old chicken shed, so when she saw the Taj Mahal of sheds for sale, there was no compromise. “No kidding, you could quite easily convert this monster of a pen into an Airbnb,” he tells me. There is a dining area, an eating area and sleeping quarters covered in carpet and hay, along with special doors that open and shut for security (keeping the foxes out). The couple weren’t sure if they should buy all of the chooks together, so, they opted for two at a time. Unfortunately, Emma and Lucy became a little territorial and when Mia and Mikayla arrived on the scene, things got a little ugly. But Mark says the settling-in period didn’t last all that long and everyone is now living happily together. So happily, in fact, they almost started laying eggs straight away. Deb is convinced she knows when they are laying because their clucking goes up a few notches. “At the start, the eggs were very small, but now, some of them are huge,” she tells me. According to Mark, what turned out as a little idea has become somewhat of an going concern. Since the onset of COVID a few years back, people have been getting a little more domestically focused. For some reason, we have discovered that we can make being at home a pleasurable experience. Deb and Mark have demonstrated to me that making life interesting and worthwhile doesn’t take much. In fact, it could simply be in your own backyard. Peter Fiorenza is a Greater Geraldton councillor and hosts Fiorenza on Sunday between 10am and noon on Radio MAMA