The chickens who flew to Kaitaia

Here's a funny thing. A young woman who admits she is scared of chooks is now running a free range chicken farm that's home to hundreds and hundreds of the little twittering critters. Isn't that a bit like being a pilot and being afraid of heights?

Not quite and it should be pointed out Rebecca Maw used to be afraid of hens - past tense. When viewed from a commercial perspective she overcame her initial reluctance to not go anywhere near them and began looking more benevolently on the little birds. And there was another imperative. Her son, Danny, was diagnosed as autistic when he was four years old but she noticed that when he was around chickens and hens he became calm.

"He loves being with them and they love him and follow him around. When he's upset or worried he can be with the chickens and it has an enormously beneficial affect on him."

Rebecca started off with just 12 chickens initially, mainly for Danny's benefit, and began selling the eggs locally before she looked further ahead.

"I did heaps of research and contacted MAF and thought why shouldn't I do this on a bigger scale?"

So Danny's Free Range Eggs has become what she calls a 'fun' business that's constantly growing. In early June she purchased 1,000 just-hatched day-old chicks from Tegal. The fluffy little yellow things flew to Kaitaia from Auckland - admittedly on an Air New Zealand plane - and were pretty much VIP passengers that day apart from the four humans inside the cabin.

At the Maw home, high on the hill in Zidich Road near Taipa, the chicks are housed in a special boxed unit and were just over a week old when they had their first visitors. Danny's class, Room 1 at the little 90-pupil Kaingaroa School, were invited to come along with Assistant Principal Sally Potter, Teacher's Assistant Carol Whitlow and Acting Principal Rob Soar to have a look at the new arrivals. Even the adults who are used to country life hadn't seen so many baby chickens in the one place or as many as the 1,400 fully grown laying hens housed further up the hill.

Rebecca Maw thinks she could handle about 3,000 hens on the property with the help of her parents Anthony and Susan. She couldn't grow the business any bigger without employing someone else, which she's reluctant to do at this stage. It's important that her livestock - and the eggs they produce - remain totally free range. Her retail outlets are Bells Produce Limited in Kaitaia, various shops in Mangonui and Taipa and the Kaitaia and Kerikeri Farmers' Markets.