What came first: the chicken or the egg? Sarah Rogers' old speckled hen may have been trying to shout the answer from the rooftop of her farmhouse in Parore, just north-west of Dargaville. Firefighters from the Dargaville Fire Brigade received a call-out on Sunday to "assist the public". They arrived at the sceneto discover a distressing sight. A crafty mother hen had jumped up the banister through the deck and stairs to lay her eggs in a nook created by overlapping sections of roof. Some of the eggs had hatched, leaving the chicks stranded in their new home. "They were wee little fellas, a couple of days old. One of them jumped off the roof," volunteer firefighter Jeff Palmer said. Ms Rogers and her 13 children were on hand to watch the firefighters on their mission. "They took a box up and put the eggs and chickens into it, like a cradle," said Ms Rogers. She had not rescued the chickens herself as they were on a precarious part of the roof and she did not have a big enough ladder. Mr Palmer said he only discovered the nature of the job when he reached the farmhouse. The volunteers ended up rescuing three chooks and about 20 eggs, he said. The Rogers' flighty chickens are not going anywhere in the foreseeable future. The chooks, eggs included, are being safely kept behind the bars of a cage. The whole event had provided a bit of excitement for the children, said Ms Rogers.
