Little Green Space

LITTLE GREEN SPACE

Originally published in the Peak Advertiser on 24 March 2008

With Easter just around the corner, many people are turning their thoughts to eggs. The average person in the UK consumes approximately 173 eggs per year (that's real eggs rather than chocolate ones). And with the recent publicity given to chicken welfare by Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, increasing numbers of shoppers are now choosing free range eggs.

We have decided to go one step further and raise our own chickens. Knowing little about the art of chicken maintenance, we took delivery of a chicken ‘starter pack’ a few weeks ago with some trepidation. The pack consisted of a rather handsome henhouse and run, four rather handsome hens, and all the equipment needed — feed, bedding, and instruction book — to look after the birds. And so far, it has been surprisingly easy.

The advice was to keep the hens in their house and run for the first few weeks, until they had become used to their new home. The henhouse was placed on a large sheet of wire mesh to prevent foxes from burrowing into the run and eating the birds. All we had to do was provide a plentiful supply of fresh water and food — in the form of pellets, available from farming supplies stores.

Free range

The hens — two Lohman Brown and two white Amber hybrids — seemed happy in their home: they had room to roam in the run, enjoyed treats of sweetcorn and cooked pasta and got loads of attention from the children. However, the point of getting the chickens — apart from the eggs of course — was to have free-ranging animals that lead a happy life full of scratching and foraging. So at the weekend we released them from the run. This was a scary moment: what if they flew away or were eaten by the fox?

In the end our fears were needless, but I did learn an important lesson about chickens: they will go wherever they want to. Turning their backs on the five acres of grassland they have at their disposal, they scrambled under the hedge and into the garden. There they had a lovely time, scratching up grubs (and hopefully slugs) and rummaging in the dead leaves under the apple tree. Our garden is not particularly pristine, so I did not mind this invasion — and so far they have thankfully kept off the veggie patch.

There is something very pleasant and relaxing about sitting in the garden with a cup of tea while the hens roam around us. But the main thing that strikes me is how happy Rosie, Bramble, Holly and Snowy are. Compared to their unfortunate cousins the battery hens, crammed four to a tiny wire cage and never seeing daylight or being able to engage in normal chicken behaviour, our hens are living the life of Riley.

And we know that the eggs in our fridge have been laid by happy hens, and have arrived with a carbon footprint of zero.

What you can do:

It's easier than you might think to raise hens in your garden. Unless you are planning to raise your own hens from chicks, you will not need a cockerel, which can be very noisy and may upset your neighbours.

Hybrids like our Lohman Browns and Ambers can produce up to 300 eggs per year. Or you could do your bit for breed conservation and choose a pure breed such as Buff Sussex, Marans or Silkies. These will produce fewer eggs but can be very striking in appearance. Bantams are a good choice for smaller gardens and tend to be particularly docile — important if you have small children. It is best to buy birds at point-of-lay: hens around 19 weeks old, which are just coming into egg-laying age.

Books on chicken-keeping such as Starting With Chickens by Katie Thear are available from the library and can give you an idea of the level of commitment involved. You need to make sure the birds are safe from foxes by shutting them into their house at dusk. They need fresh food and water and their house needs to be cleaned out regularly.

We bought our chicken starter kit from a regular advertiser in the Peak Advertiser. It cost around £450 including four birds.

If you don't have the space or time for keeping chickens, you can promote chicken welfare by choosing free-range eggs. And be aware that most ready-made produce containing eggs — quiches, cakes, mayonnaise — will be produced using eggs from battery hens.

You can support Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Chicken Out campaign by signing up at www.chickenout.tv

Follow the progress of Rosie, Bramble, Holly and Snowy at www.littlegreenspace.org.uk

Once you have your free-range eggs you might like to try the following recipe.

‘YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME ALONE’

A Victorian cold lemon pudding

Beat up 3 egg yolks with 2 oz caster sugar. Add grated rind and juice of a lemon. Melt a good quarter-ounce of gelatine in 5 tablespoons of hot water. When it is dissolved and cooled, add to the yolk mix.

Whip the 3 egg whites until very stiff and fold gently into lemon mixture. When set, spread with slightly warmed (to soften) raspberry or apricot jam and cover with whipped cream.

Serves 5 or 6.

Penny at Little Green Space