A miniature railway for hens

Written by BHWT supporter and train enthusiast Mike Slatter

We would frequently be asked “Why do you have a railway in the garden?” and the reply would often be “because we do not own a wheelbarrow”, but the truth is that our garden is centred around the preservation of a particular kind of rare miniature garden railway called “The Tri-ang Minic Narrowgauge Railway”, built by the Tri-ang company at its Canterbury between 1963 and 1966.

Our hen journey started with four British Hen Welfare Trust rescue hens collected in July 2022 aptly named Annie, Clarabel, Mavis and Henrietta after characters in the Thomas the Tank Engine children’s books and to be in keeping with our garden railway theme. In October we put our names down to rescue two more girls, named Roberta and Phyllis after the characters in ‘The Railway Children’.

To create an enriched environment with a railway theme we built a station platform using recycled plastic composite decking boards and added a station building by modifying a New Age Pet ‘Fontana Chicken Barn’ coop. Both are composite plastic and allow for easy cleaning. The platform provides height above, shelter below and the station somewhere separate for the chickens to lay away from their normal Omlet Cube coop.

Finally, we added a short length of track and a ‘Pullman’ coach filled with containers of dry soil to allow our girls something to dust bathe in. They also use it to perch upon and every evening wait to be fed in the coach as they seem to enjoy first class “Pullman Dining!”

What’s next for the ‘Hen Halt’ station and the chicken’s railway journey? You’ll just have to grab a ticket and come for a ride to see.