← MR. JONES, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen−houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes. 🔊
← The hens perched themselves on the window−sills, the pigeons fluttered up to the rafters, the sheep and cows lay down behind the pigs and began to chew the cud. 🔊
← Every drop of it has gone down the throats of our enemies. And you hens, how many eggs have you laid in this last year, and how many of those eggs ever hatched into chickens? 🔊
← To that horror we all must come−cows, pigs, hens, sheep, everyone. Even the horses and the dogs have no better fate. 🔊
← "What is going to happen to all that milk?" said someone. "Jones used sometimes to mix some of it in our mash," said one of the hens. 🔊
← Moreover, it was the biggest harvest that the farm had ever seen. There was no wastage whatever; the hens and ducks with their sharp eyes had gathered up the very last stalk. 🔊
← He was indefatigable at this. He formed the Egg Production Committee for the hens, the Clean Tails League for the cows, the Wild Comrades' Re−education Committee (the object of this was to tame the rats and rabbits), the Whiter Wool Movement for the sheep, and various others, besides instituting classes in reading and writing. 🔊
← It was also found that the stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart. 🔊
← Even the hens and ducks came, and were at pains not to tread on the chalk marks. 🔊
← The hens, said Napoleon, should welcome this sacrifice as their own special contribution towards the building of the windmill. 🔊
← One Sunday morning Squealer announced that the hens, who had just come in to lay again, must surrender their eggs. 🔊
← When the hens heard this, they raised a terrible outcry. They had been warned earlier that this sacrifice might be necessary, but had not believed that it would really happen. 🔊
← Napoleon acted swiftly and ruthlessly. He ordered the hens' rations to be stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a grain of corn to a hen should be punished by death. 🔊
← The dogs saw to it that these orders were carried out. For five days the hens held out, then they capitulated and went back to their nesting boxes. 🔊
← Nine hens had died in the meantime. Their bodies were buried in the orchard, and it was given out that they had died of coccidiosis. 🔊
← The three hens who had been the ringleaders in the attempted rebellion over the eggs now came forward and stated that Snowball had appeared to them in a dream and incited them to disobey Napoleon's orders. 🔊
← They had made their way on to the little knoll where the half−finished windmill stood, and with one accord they all lay down as though huddling together for warmth−Clover, Muriel, Benjamin, the cows, the sheep, and a whole flock of geese and hens−everyone, indeed, except the cat, who had suddenly disappeared just before Napoleon ordered the animals to assemble. 🔊
← Snowball was known to be still skulking on Pinchfield Farm. In the middle of the summer the animals were alarmed to hear that three hens had come forward and confessed that, inspired by Snowball, they had entered into a plot to murder Napoleon. 🔊
← At the beginning, when the laws of Animal Farm were first formulated, the retiring age had been fixed for horses and pigs at twelve, for cows at fourteen, for dogs at nine, for sheep at seven, and for hens and geese at five. 🔊
← A stump of hay and part of the potato crop were sold off, and the contract for eggs was increased to six hundred a week, so that that year the hens barely hatched enough chicks to keep their numbers at the same level. 🔊