Where is home?
I was bought up in a town. A normal town in Essex. Rows and rows of houses, all alike. Local schools, and shops, average people doing average everyday things. Washing cars on a Sunday, fish and chips on a Friday night for dinner. Two rival schools fighting frequently, houses getting broken into, car radios getting nicked, and old women having their handbags nicked, and most teenagers getting stoned or drunk! The joys of suburbia.
I wanted out!
A Country life for me!
I moved out to the sticks with my wife. She lived in a little village, surrounded by fields and country side, a dash of fresh air here and there, and wanted to live somewhere similar when we got our house together. Which was all fine by me.
Our house has surrounding fields, it has a river running close by, we have a small community, and everyone has a “local accent!” We took with us Wifey’s cat. A natural hunter and predator, and keen on leaving small dead rabbits on the neighbours pillow. Always a good ice breaker I feel!
Chickens anyone?
We wanted more of a country feel, and looked into keeping chickens and ducks. Obviously it was for the eggs, but also for our future children to be able to interact with them, learn, and understand where chicken meat and eggs came from.
It all seemed easy enough, we found a local rescue place for battery hens which we rang and ordered our 4 hens! We were very excited at the thought of having fresh eggs every day.
Firstly, the hens needed a home. I could of built one, but my DIY skills and knowledge are dismal, maybe less than dismal, poor perhaps…what-ever, they are low.
Therefore we looked into a few options and came across an Eco type home for the hens. It was called the Eglu from Omlet a funky design, a variety of colours, we have the green one. It’s brilliant. It is easy to clean, easy to move. It was secure from foxes and predators. All of our friends wanted one! And it housed 4 hens easily.
Family fun
The day we picked the hens up, we arrived at the place, along with lots more people. We picked up 4 hens, some folk picked up 20 hens. I spoke to one of the organisers and was advised that they collect/rescue approximately 10,000 battery hens to be re-housed, this they did about 8 – 10 times per year.
Each hen is sold on for a mere 50p! Or a donation towards the British Hen Rescue Trust. So I handed over £20 for the 4. Possibly the most rewarding £20 I have parted with.
We were rewarded daily with eggs. It is such a great feeling collecting your own eggs from your own chickens every day. They taste so different from shop bought ones. Honestly they do. We gave them to friends and family. Everyone loved them and looked forward to receiving them and eating them!
We are down to 1 chicken now. Our first 4 died of natural causes and a freak fox attack (I thought all were in the Eglu one evening, in the morning I was proved wrong!!) We replaced them with another 4; these have dwindled down to 1, Henrietta. The kids interact with her, although no more eggs at her age, she is more a pet now than ever before.
I would very much recommend them.
One of our chickens cost me £260 in vet bills…but that’s another story!!
Editors Note
You may be wondering how this fits into a normal garden in suburbia, but in reality chickens take up very little space and are, as Paul said, very rewarding to keep. In the old days many folks kept chickens in their back yards and gardens. I wonder how it would change our landscape and the mass food production chain if more people decided to keep fowl and attract wildlife. Obviously, this would not be practical for investment properties(!) but there is no reason why more ordinary back gardens and families cant benefit.
