Music fails to egg on chooks

They're as country as a Ferguson tractor, but even Roger Miller, Patsy Cline and Kenny Rogers can't make hens lay more eggs.

Even three weeks listening to country music could not get 100 chickens to lay more than they would in a quiet henhouse, researcher Jessica Murphy has found.

For several hours a day during the study, the Murphy family's hens listened to the country stars as what happened in their Waikouaiti nests was examined by science.

The free-range hens still left the henhouse during the day, but were always within crooning distance of the grey portable stereo playing near their coops.

In stage two, the hens clucked peacefully in a silent henhouse for three weeks, so the 15-year-old researcher could measure how the music affected productivity.

The results were presented at the Aurora Otago Science and Technology Fair, where the East Otago Year 11 pupil won a prize - her ninth in five years - for her work.

Sitting on a gate at her family farm last week, Jessica avoided a pecking beak to explain how her "Egging Them On" project had furthered her understanding of her feathered friends.

A longer study might prove more conclusive, but she found the hens laid most of their eggs by 10am when the music was played, but were still laying at 4pm when the stereo was silent.

The results could have been different had Jessica studied the effect of traditional Indian music, which she played at the start of the study, before her father swapped the album for one of his own.

"Dad just took things into his own hands, because [he] was working near the hens, and did not want to listen to classical music all day," said Jessica, who admits she is scared of hens' beaks and feet.

"So I suppose we got to see how country music affects the animals that hear it. And they don't seem to care."

Songs hens would like:

The Wind beneath My Wings - Bette Midler
The Birdie Dance - traditional
Old McDonald Had a Farm - traditional
Chicken Reel - just about every bluegrass band
Chicken in Black - Johnny Cash
Chicken Bone Bone - Manhattan Transfer
Stay away from My Hen House - Gene Autrey
Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens - Ray Stevens
Anything by the Dixie Chicks, Rooster, Charlie Feathers or Wings

Songs hens would not like:

Grandma's feather bed - John Denver
Chicken Hearted - Roy Orbison
The Fox Came Out - traditional
Anything by the Eagles, or the Headless Chickens
Their ultimate album: Poultry in Motion, by Hasil Adkins (every song is about chickens).