Counting your Chickens

The chickens that wander around on the side of the road have got some babies.  These cute little bundles of fluff are no doubt destined to become cat food in the not-too distant future.  But for now they are indeed rather sweet little neighbours.  I’m really rather envious – and it got me thinking about keeping chickens.

I used to keep chickens myself.  It’s a shame that they have become so trendy and taken over by the green wellie brigade.  You don’t need to pay the earth for them and you certainly don’t need a posh chicken coop.  A bit of basic DIY soon knocks up something much better than the chicken houses you can buy on line. 

Because chickens are very unassuming livestock, dead easy to keep – and reward you with daily eggs.  The only trouble is that they are very easy to get attached to.  So you end up with some hand-tame fowls strutting around your garden, long after their egg-laying days are behind them.

And they come in all shapes and sizes.  If you simply want eggs – then a number of hybrids will provide all the eggs you can eat and then some.  But to my mind the real joy of keeping hens is to choose some that actually look nice.  There are dozens if not hundreds of varieties some of which are very handsome indeed.  I kept Wyandottes which have some beautiful feather combinations.

In fact one of my early purchases turned out to be a rooster.  He used to sit on my shoulder, for all the world like a giant parrot – and although he couldn’t talk, he could crow loud enough to wake the dead.

There are very few negatives about keeping chickens.  Sure, if you let them roam free they will crap everywhere.  And they do like to scratch away at the garden and lawn… and find somewhere for a dust bath that probably used to be one of your prized garden plants.  Oh – and they tend to get eaten by foxes and neighbourhood dogs – but aside from that they give a great deal of pleasure.

The eggs are just part of it.  Hens are highly entertaining to watch – and each seems to have a character all of their own (if invariably rather stupid).  They don’t ask for much in return.  A nice dry coop, somewhere to poke around all day long… and to be shut up at night away from Mr Fox.  All in all I highly recommend keeping chickens… I rather miss them.