Tristan’s failure to raise hens is a comic farming venture in which Siegfried’s hopes for a dependable supply of eggs collapse into daily roundups, neighbourly complaints, and a humiliating reversal. The hens prove not incapable of laying: after Siegfried gives them away, Mrs. Dale reports collecting ten eggs a day. Their escape and eventual success elsewhere expose the gap between the brothers’ assumptions about animal care and the practical attention the flock requires.

The egg-producing plan

When Siegfried gets the idea, he moves quickly. Within forty-eight hours, a litter of ten pigs occupies the sty and twelve Light Sussex pullets are behind the hen-house wire. He is especially pleased with the hens, which he considers a good strain and almost ready to lay. His imagined future is modest and domestic: first a trickle of eggs, then enough to be snowed under, with the pleasure of a fresh egg still warm from the nest. The confidence of this forecast gives the venture its initial momentum, but the story soon measures it against the unfilled nesting boxes.

Tristan does not share Siegfried’s enthusiasm for eggs. He is often found outside the hen house, looking bored and sometimes throwing bread crusts over the wire; the regular feeding and balanced diet recommended by experts are conspicuously absent. He takes some interest in the birds, but as individuals: their clucking and gait amuse him more than their usefulness as egg producers. That difference matters to the outcome. Siegfried views the flock chiefly as a productive undertaking, while Tristan’s casual attention does not supply the routine the undertaking depends on.

Escape and neighbourhood complaints

Weeks pass without an egg. Siegfried grows increasingly irritable and searches the empty nesting boxes each morning, still hoping the hens will prove to be the laying strain he bought. The first clear sign that the project has gone badly comes not from the hen house but from the trees. One afternoon, Tristan points James Herriot towards unusually coloured, large birds perched in the elms and in a neighbour’s apple trees. He delays the explanation long enough for James to wonder whether he is looking at an unfamiliar migration. Then Tristan reveals that the birds are their hens and says they have left home.

The escape is not a single excursion. Looking over the wall, James and Tristan find five more hens pecking among cabbages in the neighbouring garden. Getting the whole flock back into the hen house takes a long time, and the tedious recovery has to be repeated several times a day. The hens range farther afield in search of food, becoming, in effect, nomads rather than a contained laying flock. Their movement makes the failure visible beyond the brothers’ own property: neighbours first laugh and telephone to say that their children are rounding up the birds, then lose their amusement as the interruptions continue.

The change in the neighbours’ response makes the problem more serious than Siegfried’s disappointment over the missing eggs. He is eventually drawn into painful conversations in which he is told that the hens are an unmitigated nuisance. The birds’ roaming has turned an unsuccessful household enterprise into a source of friction with the people around them. Siegfried responds by deciding that they must go, and directs his anger at Tristan, blaming his care for the absent eggs, the hens flying about like pigeons, and the estrangement from the neighbours. Tristan offers a defence, but Siegfried rejects it in an outburst and sends him away; Tristan withdraws quietly.

The reversal at the dining table

After a fortnight, James thinks the last echoes of the poultry venture have died away. The apparent calm breaks when Siegfried enters the dining room and confronts Tristan about the hens he had given to Mrs. Dale, an elderly pensioner in Brown’s Yard. His report overturns the original failure: Mrs. Dale is delighted with the birds, gives them hot mash morning and night, and collects ten eggs a day. The number exactly answers the egg producer’s earlier hopes, but now it belongs to another household.

The contrast is pointed without needing a further explanation: under Siegfried and Tristan’s arrangement, the hens supplied no eggs and repeatedly escaped; in Mrs. Dale’s care, they are productive. The text specifies her feeding routine but does not reduce the difference to a single proven cause. Instead, it lets the juxtaposition expose the limits of Siegfried’s confidence and the inadequacy of the care Tristan provided. Siegfried’s rising, almost whispered announcement of the daily total turns the good news into a fresh accusation against his brother.

Comic structure and ending

The episode’s comic turn depends on delayed recognition and reversal. The hens first appear in the trees as exotic strangers; their identity is then revealed as the answer to Tristan’s teasing challenge. Later, the absence of eggs seems to confirm that the flock is a bad purchase, until the report from Mrs. Dale shows that the same hens can lay prolifically. Success does not undo the earlier nuisance or restore Siegfried’s lost expectations: it sharpens his grievance by demonstrating what the venture might have yielded elsewhere.

James leaves the dining room rather than remain for the confrontation. On his way out through the passage and back door, he passes the empty hen house, which has a forlorn look, while Siegfried’s voice can still be heard from the dining room. That final contrast gives the episode its closing image: the hens are gone, their former home is empty, and the argument over their failure continues. The poultry venture turns a routine household plan into a small study of mismatched expectations, neglect, and the comic persistence of consequences between the brothers.