Keeping Chickens

Having chickens (or "the girls" as they are known in my house) is such fun. They are real characters and very entertaining. Not just that, they also eat leftovers and supply lots of lovely eggs. On average, a chicken will lay 250 eggs a year. Oh the joy of collecting a still warm egg (or several)! It is only surpassed by the pure bliss of eating them; they have yolks of the deepest yellow that you won't get from any supermarket egg.

At the moment I have Marans (dark brown eggs) and Brahmas (tinted eggs), which I keep on my allotment, at the back of my garden. I've had many varieties over the years and picked up all sorts of odd information along the way (did you know that avocados are poisonous to chickens?) I always think you don't need to be an expert, you just need to know an expert, and, thanks to the Internet, help is just a few clicks away. There are some fab web sites out there, just type "chicken" into your browser.

One of my favourites is omlet.co.uk, which sells a wonderful range of trendy looking hutches. My "girls" live in style in a new chicken house - I bought mine at Broadfeed, on the Tunbridge Wells Industrial Park, but other local pet shops have them too, or you could check out henhouseworld.co.uk.

As for the chickens themselves, you could choose pure breeds that can trace their ancestors back to the Romans, like Dorkings, or hybrids. Rhode Island Red crossed with Sussex forms the basis of most of the hybrids today. I once had a Sussex which is one of the oldest breeds, and when she got broody, which they are prone to do, I encouraged her to sit and hatch a clutch of quails eggs that my neighbour had bought on the internet. It didn't work!

I also had a black Frizelle, which are normally lovely looking birds, but I can honestly say that she was the ugliest chicken I've ever seen, we still loved her though and she reliably laid gorgeous light blue eggs.

Lots of people are surprised that chickens eat meat, however they are carnivores, think of all the poor slugs and worms! Our white Leghorn was outraged if we didn't give her some grated cheese or oats. We feed the chickens with pellets and about a quarter of their diet is scraps. I also give the "girls" oyster shells to peck at because the oyster grit helps them lay strong shelled eggs. I use straw for their bedding because it's cheap and it composts easily.

One breed of chicken I would love to own are the Ameraucana/Araucanas. They are known as the "Easter egg chicken" and their eggs vary from blue green shades of turquoise to a deep olive. Mmmm... Maybe next time!

Article written for Summer 2009 issue by Lucy Hession

Fabulous photography by www.janetpenny.com