All the fluffy ladies, put your pom-pom heads up

By Bree Harding

Aug 21, 2024

Phoebe Kelly of Seymour with her pet chooks. Phoebe sells the eggs to make pocket money. Photo by Supplied

She has more chickens than she has had birthdays, but six-year-old Phoebe Kelly, from Seymour, says eight is not enough.

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The pint-sized chook whisperer, who turns seven next week, loves to pick up and cuddle her hens but said they were hard to catch, particularly her Australorp, Cinderella and Araucana, Nana (pronounced like the last four letters of banana, not one of your parent’s mothers), who was named after her Na! Na! Na! dolls.

Phoebe Kelly of Seymour with a pet chook. Photo by Supplied

Phoebe has named all of her chickens besides her black Silkie. Her mum, Rebecca, a ‘Queen Bey’ fan, named the fluffy little bock-bocking vocalist Beyoncé.

Beyoncé is one of four Silkies Phoebe owns, making up half of the brood.

The others are Pearl, her favourite of all the chooks, Sunny Sunshine, her second favourite, and Snow White.

Phoebe Kelly of Seymour enjoys a double cuddle. Photo by Supplied

“I like cute names,” Phoebe said.

“They are fluffy pom-pom heads.”

A pair of ISA Browns named Kelly and Goldie round out the flock’s eight.

Though the chickens are her pets, they serve another purpose for Phoebe: they bolster her savings account when she sells the eggs they lay.

“I sell them for $5 a dozen to Nanny, Taz and Uncle Scott,” she said.

“I’m saving up to buy a big Pokémon card.”

Phoebe Kelly of Seymour with one of her pet chooks. Photo by Supplied

Unfortunately, the nest egg doesn’t swell too swiftly in the winter, when Phoebe would be lucky to collect a single goog between the eight layers.

She’s looking forward to her money-makers returning to producing one each every day come spring.

There is no rooster in the flock. However, there is a surrogate mother among them, Pearl, who nested on a fertilised egg that a neighbour had brought over for the Kelly family to incubate and rear once hatched.

That chick was Sunny Sunshine, who used to sit underneath her foster mum to sleep when she first emerged from her shell. She still likes to be cuddled and the family puts that down to her being accustomed to human handling from early chookhood.

Phoebe said the chickens ate grain and household food scraps and spent their days “pooing lots and having dust baths”.

Phoebe Kelly ensures her chooks look their best. Photo by Supplied

Kelly has a further thrill-seeking pastime though. She made a break from the coop into the house last week, causing chaos.

“I had to chase her and catch her,” Phoebe said with a laugh.

“She’s a cheeky chook.”

Rescue cat Daisy, the farm’s newest pet, isn’t sure what to make of the chickens (or her newfound nemesis, the dog) yet, but sits and watches them curiously from afar, trying to work them out.

Friendly mixed-breed dog Gypsy, the farm’s oldest pet, respects the chooks more than the birds she chases and leaves them in peace to roam freely around the property.

None of the chickens have been shown yet, but the family is considering putting Pearl on display at Seymour’s next farming expo.