In last Thursday’s Photo of the Day post, curator Margaret Simpson wrote about the widespread practice of keeping chickens for domestic use in late nineteenth century Australia:
By the end of the nineteenth century most people in Australia kept a few fowls for home use. Chickens needed a chicken coop or house in which to lay and sit on their eggs, where they were shut up at night, safe from predators, such as foxes. The chickens fed on kitchen scraps and spare grains, and any seeds, insects or morsels they could find in the yard.
This photograph, from an unattributed studio, shows a woman in what appears to be a suburban backyard feeding her fowls from a kitchen saucepan. The wire coop that kept the chickens safe from nighttime predators is clearly visible. The birds, however, were a little too fast for the camera’s shutter as can be seen from the blur created by their fluttering wings.
Photography by unattributed studio. Tyrrell Collection
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