THE heading may puzzle readers. What makes a kampong hen sitting on her eggs for weeks deserve a Special Report? The short answer is its unbelievable maternal instincts very few people know.
Read on though. (By the way, this is my 40th anniversary in roving travel into deep interior Sabah and report to urban folks.)
This first stop? Nabawan hinterland – where the pictures here published were captured, 173km or four hours’ drive from Kota Kinabalu, past Papar, over the Crocker Range, Keningau and beyond.
A starting shock – most of the commercial hens that produce the table eggs you eat daily, have been bred out their natural maternal instincts to sit on their eggs to incubate!
This is what makes this story of an instinct driven kampong hen rare and basically lost in cities.
In time to come, you may not see it any more as kampong chicken get less and less, even as you rove, wander, travel constantly around.
Refiring 40 years of roving reporting
In 1986, exactly 40 years ago, I was recruited a ‘Roving Reporter’ by then old Sabah Times (founded 1954 by late Tan Sri Yeh Pau Tze who recruited Donald Stephen as his first Chief Editor) Chief Editor Cheam Toon Lee.
His directive? Forget about city news. You travel to all interiors of Sabah and bring back stories to city folks.
Probably the only such appointment ever in Sabah. His reason?
The chances of scoops were high since no journalists those days were focussed travel writers.
True – 40 years ago when gravel roads, poor transports, expensive cameras and technically complex dark room work, were the rule.
It was really hard to rove or mount extensive travel to capture undocumented stories but when I did, my initial perception that Sabah nothing to offer was totally revolutionised to seeing the diverse beauty, the deep natural, cultural and environmental wonders though sadly I later saw big time destruction to originally pristine forests and rivers crept in from the 90s onwards.
But the fire and longing for roving journalism has never diminished or left.
A least expected hen and eggs sight at transit point
However, I was never looking for this “kampong hen sitting on her eggs” story.
It just crossed my path by chance.
First, it was an instant powerful reminder of my own Mile 5 Apas Road, Tawau farm, childhood flooding back.
So 40 years on, this marks a continuing roving report from wild interior Sabah.
My actual destination was a newly-built Murut Tahol longhouse hidden well upstream Saliu river, Kg Salinatan, Pensiangan, on the border of Kalimantan.
But half way, this unexpected brooding black hen caught my attention.
It happened this way. The day was June 13, 2025.
At 5am, Ramli Emayasin of Ecotourism Association of Tahas Tininting, Salinatan, Pensiangan, drove his tourist van into Hilltop to pick me up.
This time, Tham Yau Kong, who usually takes me for such long trips wasn’t there,
By 7am or so, we arrived at a popular stopover at the foothills of the Crocker Range, for coffee and breakfast.
Food quality was so-so but what is really unforgettable is freshly boiled sweet corn at RM2 per cob.
After a long wait for Sabah Tourism officers for the rendezvous, we hit the road again.
But it wasn’t a straight drive to Pensiangan.
Overwhelming childhood memory struck at Murut chief’s house
We stopped at a transit point at the kampong house of Ansom Tutiang, Nabawan, President of the Sabah Murut Tahol Association, to switch over to 4WDs which alone can handle the rough, back-breaking dirt road beyond Nabawan.
It was while waiting for the 4-wheel drives to arrive, that I noticed a yellow plastic bucket hanging from the wall of a stilted hut.
In it was a brooding black hen sitting dead still.
As noted earlier, the sight sparked off of an overwhelming childhood farm house memory, Tawau.
I could not resist walking up to take a close look.
But after a short research, I found there is something very extraordinary to offer about hens sitting on their eggs in the natural world.
Can you see this anymore in towns and cities like Kota Kinabalu? The answer is “no”.
Only interior Sabahans are still hanging on to age old animal breeding traditions long abandoned by city folks.
Just google what the mother hen does, certain virtues pierce the heart.
Each time you eat your eggs in town, think about the amazing feats the hen is actually doing to bring about new life as it sits rooted on its eggs.
Since chicken rice and eggs consumption is so pervasive in urban Sabah and everywhere, this most exploited bird in the world deserves some special honor for a change.
A story of unbelievable maternal instincts
“A hen sitting on eggs is a powerful display of maternal instincts driven by hormones to nurture new life until its emerges,” says Tove Danovich.
A mother hen sits on its eggs until they hatch is due to a hormonal instinct called broodiness – the instinct to incubate eggs, which is triggered by a mix of genetics, hormones and environmental cues, such as longer daylight hours as in temperate regions, warm temperatures, a build-up of eggs in a quiet nest and even seeing other chicks – all leading to a surge of the hormone prolactin.
These factors signal to her internal clock that it’s time to reproduce causing her to stop laying eggs and focus on keeping eggs warm and turning them for about 21 days to ensure proper development for the chicks – a process called incubation.
Clearly, this roving report from deep interior Sabah opens our eyes to the science of some unbelievable motherly instincts behind broodiness which include the following:
Hormonal shift: The pituitary gland releases prolactin, the hormone that drives hens to go broody.
Instinct takes over: This hormone overrides her normal egg laying cycle making her stop laying and focus on incubation.
Feather loss: She plucks feathers from her breast to create a warm broad bare patch of skin that directly transfers body heat to the eggs.
Next Protection: She becomes aggressive, puffing up feathers and pecking intrudes to defend her nest, growling , as this black hen did when I moved close.
Egg Care: She diligently turns here eggs to ensure even heating and development.
The pathos of it all is in the commercial world of egg production, these incredible maternal instincts are largely bred of existence in order induce egg laying hens to do only one thing - maximise egg production.
Rough, tumble dirt road to remote Kg Salinatan
LEAVING the inspirational hen and eggs story at Ansom Tutiang’s Nabawan kampong house just before noon, the entourage had lunch somewhere in Sapulut.
Proceeding from Sapulut, initial bitumen roads led to a long dirt road drive.
I fully expected a nice drive over a narrow but basically smooth ride like 2022, to the next transition stop – Kg Salinatan itself.
To my surprise, a huge road construction project was going on involving massive hill cuttings, huge earth dump trucks, massive excavators.
So what was going on – part of the Borneo Highway construction to Pensiangan and beyond? That answer I did not manage to find out.
But the 4-wheel drive ride was muddy, bumpy, lurking from side to side, road blocks at some work sites, which slowed down the journey.
It was a vivid reminder of roving reporting days in 1986 when overland travel was rough gravel off roads everywhere.
So we reached Kg Salinatan – some 20km or so upstream Pensiangan by the river Saliu, at about 5.20pm, where some 10 or so pump boats were waiting to speed us to the newly constructed Murut Tahol longhouse, in falling light.
Compared to the rough and tumble road journey, the pump boat travel up river was a sheer thrill which will be featured in the second part!
