What came first, the chicken or the hedge?

Saturday Jan 5th, Sunny and Warm

Traveling through New Zealand it’s impossible not to see the British influence that invades every aspect of day-to-day life.
This entire culture is based on carving plants, primarily evergreen plants into boxes, globes, rectangles and the occasional rhombus. We found someone quite literally in the middle of nowhere, tilting against their own windmills of convention.
Driving south towards Dunedin our goal for the evening, we passed a sight not often seen on roads in the US, or anywhere for that matter. A 35-foot tall cedar chicken, a hen to be exact.
Cupressus macrocarpa, not the scientific name for the bird, but the plant shorn to form the foul. I’m not ready to pass any kind of judgment on this horticultural expression, yet it does raise a question. How does one maintain something like this?
Poultry shears?