Jumbo kills dad's show chooks

Bertha's father had been rearing some hens for the local agricultural show but one day, for no apparent reason, Bertha's brother, Lawrie (Jumbo) chased and killed most of them.

"(Dad) had these prize chooks, they were a special breed… Betty used to call them check hens," says Bertha.

"I don't know why Jumbo did it but he got in and chased them round and round.

"Every time he caught up with one, he'd hit it with a stick.

"He'd killed about half of them before mum went out to see what the chooks were so distressed about.

"So when Dad came home Jumbo got slap, slap, slap on the backside."

That was the only time Bertha recalls her father hitting any of the children.

Chequered hens

(Image: reproduced under creative commons licence)