Black Beauty, a Silkie, Fluffy, a Frizzle, and Fire, a Belgian, taught him how to care for animals and began his love affair with hens. Oliver had always wanted to have chooks and says he was excited that his first ones were not just brown shavers. “I wanted something different.”

The three quickly became 10 when he made his first purchase of a young Araucana pair from TradeMe. He’d researched hen breeds and decided this was the path he would take. These Araucana led to the subsequent breeding of his prize-winning Lavender Araucana ‘Buffy’, which has gone on to be his most successful hens in the show ring winning at different shows around the North Island.

“I branched out then with a pair of White Leghorn Bantams. This pair had previously won their classes with the hen winning best Leghorn,” says Oliver. Two years later after several selective hatchings he managed to breed his own line – a line which had all the standards of the breed. This has led to him winning first place and Best Leghorn Bantam at the 2015 Auckland Poultry & Pigeon Association Show and then many other first placings at shows around the North Island with cockerels bred from his stock.

Move to town

Oliver’s hens became his strength during a tough time when a family break-up forced a move from the farm to town. “When I’m doing stuff with my hens or writing about them I could block out what was happening in my human world.”

The bonus of poultry breeding is the eggs – laid by the prize-winning hens.

The move to a townhouse in Cambridge town meant he could only bring a handful of his hens. By this stage he had 75 hens and several hen houses at the farm but reality had to be faced. A hard choice for a youngster to make.

He sold all but 15, choosing to keep the best of his stock. A new hen house was built. “It is the ‘Martha Stewart’ of hen houses because it has absolutely everything they need.”

Oliver has figured out what works best for his hens, giving them plenty of options for nesting, laying or just room to get away from each other. The hen house has several different length and shaped perches – again to give the hens options. It is obvious his hens are well-loved and cared for with a great deal of respect.

Breeding programme

Oliver is constantly looking to improve his hen stocks; researching on the internet, looking closely at the other breeders’ exhibits at shows and trying different options. He has one of his Jubilee Indian Game hens in a breeding programme in Otorohanga and is hoping to breed a particular colour mix of these hens by introducing outside stock.

Because he now lives in town, Oliver cannot have a rooster; and so to grow and develop his breeding group he must either buy eggs or send his hens out to visit a rooster. Not really the norm but a work in progress. Meanwhile, he has Araucana, Old English Game Bantams, Pekin, Jubilee Indian Game Bantams, Rhode Island Red Bantams, Hamburg Hen and Buff Orpington Hens.

As he sits in his hen house talking to the reporter, his favourite hen is on his lap – ‘Buffy’ the Lavender Araucana hen – the hen he first showed when he was 11, the hen who won Champion Junior Soft Feather, Champion Junior in Show and Best Junior Poultry.

“I was thrilled and she also won Best Junior at Hastings and won first place Light Breed Hen at Waikato; and in 2012 at Taranaki she won Best Poultry – Junior section. She is a lovely hen,” he says, with the obvious affection of a hen fancier.