Chicken food for thought 

It was inevitable that sooner or later I would write an article about my chickens. How I love them, with their cheeky beaky faces and the way they  race towards me when I go  to feed them with that ridiculous John Wayne cartoon waddle. 

I have kept chickens for about six years now,  having been given four for my 50th birthday. The best birthday present in the world. Out of the originals, Peggy Troop ( named after the vicars wife), Eggbertha ( in memory of the legendary chicken lady), and Bouju Marley, only Mrs Barrington Black survives, a grand old lady with glossy black feathers and a bit of an attitude. If she were human she would be Maggie Smith, the old dowager  from Downton abbey. In addition to the originals I have added Henry Peanut  and Beyonce,  a beautiful grey blue text book Bluebell hen. Unfortunately last week she succumbed to the falling over disease that seems to afflict them in later years. Luckily I have the trusty been man round the corner who comes to despatch them when necessary. Though I should probably man up and do it myself but somehow I can’t bring myself to do the deed. So currently Peanut and Mrs Barrington black are in residence, happily pecking away at some spinach I have just picked for them.

My chickens are very spoilt. More than once I have been ridiculed for making them hot porridge on a cold Monday morning or  for putting a hot water bottle under their straw, when everything was frozen solid and they were moulting, so a little thin on feathers. I even bought them some ( hideous) peach coloured wool ponchos from a craft fair that were actually made for Barbie dolls. This is the craft fair that we go to every year while on holiday and sells the most delightful arts and crafts.So delightful that it is hard to imagine the thought process that goes on in the preceding months.  I mean who would seriously make  ( let alone buy) a crocheted cover for their upright hoover? Or fun fur covers for their car seat belts? Though the recycled envelopes made from old magazines are genius and I still have some in my drawer. Along with the 25 dream catchers of different sizes bought through the years by small children. 

When you go to the checkout the lovely ladies in charge laboriously write down each product in an exercise book and record which table they came from. I got to the front of the queue and we had a conversation about how we had come down from London etc . When they got to the four peach ponchos they mentioned that I must have a lot of Barbie dolls at home. ” Oh no” I said, “they are for my chickens”. At which point the woman in charge of putting things in bags went to the door behind her, opened it and shouted through to her friends who were busy making sandwiches and cream teas and shouted ” There’s a woman here who has just bought some ponchos for her chickens.In London chickens wear clothes”. Needless to say the ponchos were not a success, along with those tiny knitted hats that you used to be able to get with Innocent smoothie bottles.

The main enemy of every chicken and particularly a Camberwell chicken is foxes. Barely a week goes by without seeing one sloping down the street, hiding behind the parked cars  or rifling through the rubbish at the end of the road. I feel sorry for them as sometimes they have mange and injured legs, scabies and generally look totally miserable. Then again, keep away from my chickens thanks, stick to the bins round the back of KFC if you’d be so kind. We dug a trench round the chicken run when we built it and filled it with rubble and earth,  with double wire, so they are actually pretty safe when inside. But there have been several incidents, always when they were out pecking around in the garden, always when we were outside, always in broad daylight. The first concerned Mrs Barrington Black. A fox crept up behind her and grabbed her from behind. Much squawking ensued so that I ran out and threw a saucepan at it, fox ran away taking all of poor Mrs B-b’s feathers,  so that half of her was completely bald as if it was ready for the oven. Apart from this indignity and a couple of convalescent days in a box in the bath,  she was right as rain, though for a month or so she looked as if she had been given the worst possible comedy haircut. Another time a fox ran into the open run and chased Peggy Troop round and round it until I managed to intervene, Peggy escaped and I shut the fox inside the run with the four chickens hopping about outside. At this point Mrs Troop took a bit of a turn,  or to coin one of my favourite ever phrases had ” a funny five minutes” and fainted, out cold on the patio. After a couple of minutes she came to, shook herself and was perfectly fine. Meanwhile the fox was going completely berserk inside the run so in the end we just let him go and he disappeared into the allotments

I think I will always keep  chickens though it would be nice to live somewhere where they could be completely free range . There is nothing on earth is as delicious as a speckled freshly laid egg with soldiers and a cup of Earl Grey tea. 

And there is nothing on earth like the comforting  chirping  and peeping noise that they make as they root around for corn, a sound that can make even the most miserable morning feel as if is full of sunshine and that everything is actually alright with the world