FROM THE DESK OF Roland Rocchiccioli – December 13, 2018

If you took the time to look at the appalling pictures of hens in cages, you would never buy caged eggs again!

GREW-up with chooks. They are very social creatures. With time, they come to trust and love you. The chook house was one of my favourite spots. What my late mother, Beria, did not know about chooks you could write on a pinhead with a six-inch nail. I spent my childhood collecting the eggs, changing their water – which was sprinkled with Condy’s crystals, mixing and feeding them pollard and bran with warm water in the morning, and wheat at night, and giving them lots of greens from the garden to keep their yolks bright yellow. Beria could spot a sick chook from a hundred-paces. Between us, including Puppy the dog, we would catch it, give it a good dose of castor oil, and then dote on the sick bird until it was well again. Rarely, if ever, did Beria lose a hen to illness.

Once a year Beria took delivery of 100-week-old chicks. We spent several days building the makeshift incubator, constructed from two small rainwater tank halves pushed together and lined with jumpers, blankets and dozens of two-inch strips of flannel undershirt. The strips, which reached to the floor and trapped the heat, were tied to pieces of Dowling placed at intervals across the top. A kerosene hurricane lamp sat in the centre of the incubator and burned, day and night.

The chicks came by train from Kalgoorlie in specially made cardboard boxes divided into sections packed with fine straw.

Unpacking them, one at a time, Beria inspected and then placed them inside the incubator. I always hoped for a sickly one.

Beria carefully wrap it in a jumper and settle it in a shoe box which she placed on the open oven door for warmth. I checked every five minutes to make sure it was still alive. ‘Ronnie, will you leave that chicken alone?’ she used to chastise me. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? You’re going to kill the bloody thing with kindness.’

The first time the chicks were allowed to run free was chaotic as they discovered the joys of scratching in the dirt. They escaped into the paddock through fence holes we didn’t know existed. Trying to catch them was great fun and we both laughed a lot. The little yellow bundles of fluff twisted and turned, making it nigh on impossible to grab a hold. As you held the terrified chick in your cupped hand, peering into their beady eyes, you could feel their tiny hearts thumping like bass drums; bah-boom, bah-boom.

For Beria, the birds weren’t only food, they were also a means of earning money which, unfortunately, Steve, her sadistic Slav husband, always took from her. She fed the chicks four or five times a day on a diet of finely chopped hard-boiled eggs, lettuce, and boiled gravy beef. She checked on them at all hours of the day and night. Not even the freezing night temperatures stopped her. Wearing only her nightie, she would climb out of bed and head outside to the garage. If there was a problem she might be there for an hour, but of the 100 chicks only one, at worst two, died. About 80 percent of the chooks would be fattened, killed and dressed, and sold at Christmas for £1($2) each. Beria’s chooks were the most popular and best tasting in the town.

Still, I remember the joy of a double-yolker egg. It was always my special treat – on toast!

The conditions under which caged chickens are kept are distressing – both for us, the egg buyers, and the birds. Sadly, popular companies, including Nestle, Betty Crocker, Tip Top Bakery, and supermarket giants’ own brands, are sourcing caged eggs to make many of their pre-packaged food products.

The RSPCA, Australia’s peak animal welfare body, also warns that as high as 80 percent of Australian restaurants, cafes and food manufacturers use caged eggs. According to their research the same percentage of Australians want to see battery cages phased-out, entirely. It is campaigning for an end to caged eggs. It said: while grocery shoppers are buying more free-range and cage-free eggs in the supermarket, the number of hens confined to battery cages has not decreased.

Are we so keen to buy cheap that we are prepared to save a dollar at the expense of a defenceless chook? What is done to them is cruel. We need to stop and check before we buy. Better still, keep your own chooks in the corner of the backyard.

The kids will love them – just as I did when I was a child, and the eggs are so much better. You might even get a double-yolker.

Contact: [email protected]