A 12-YEAR-OLD boy, affectionately known as the 'chicken whisperer', has founded a district’s new poultry club, which is proving a flying success.

Dominic Wright, who is determined not let cerebral palsy be an obstacle to achievement, has already attracted two dozen members to the Chester-le-Street and District Poultry Club.

The club was has been formed to provide a forum for people to share information, from owners of back garden hens, geese or quails to poultry farmers.

Dominic, who has owned hens for several years, said: “I like them because they are so wild and yet so domesticated at the same time. If they get out of the garden they won’t go far and will always come back.

“They are social animals and have a lot of uses - for compost, digging over gardens and eating pests, for example.

“I have a personal relationship with my chickens too. They talk back to me in chicken language.”

Dominic fell in love with chickens as a young boy, keeping them first on a small holding belonging to his aunt, and later at his Chester-le-Street home, where his parents have made a chicken run.

Dominic had an early success when, two years ago, he found a leghorn hen roaming the woods at Red Rose Primary School, which he used to attend.

He adopted her and named her Rose. He washed her, cleaned her toes with a toothbrush, fluffed her feathers with a hair dryer and entered her at the Northumberland County Show. Rose scooped a first prize, as did her eggs.

Dominic set up his new club with the help of friend Miah Lidell, 13, and Pelton Community Centre chairman Mick Rodgers.

Dominic said: “Up to 21 people came to the first meeting at the community centre and I have had three more inquiries.”

A pupil at Hermitage Academy, he plans to study animal husbandry and agriculture at Houghall College, with the view to becoming a chicken farmer on a mission to rescue battery hens.

He said: “I strongly disagree with battery farms. All animals should be treated with equal respect.

“Hens can live up to ten years, but once they are a year old they are sent away to be turned into cat feed - because they do not lay daily anymore.

“When hens are older they lay less eggs, but they are of equal quality.”

Mother Louise Wright said: “I am really proud of Dominic.

“He has overcome a lot to achieve what he has.”

  • The next meeting will be at Pelton Community Centre at 6.30pm, on Monday February 27.