It's not a route to cheap food - not for the first few years, anyhow - but keeping chickens can be surprisingly absorbing. Jane Powers on an alternative source of Easter eggs
What will your Easter egg be this weekend? Something chocolatey and fabulously expensive or something grabbed from the corner shop in an any-old-yoke-will-do moment? Mine, in case you're wondering, will be utterly perfect. About the size of a table tennis ball, palest brown on the outside, with a near-orange domed yolk standing taut and high above the albumen on the inside. Delicious. And, gram for gram, a shocking extravagance (but, dare I say, much more nutritious than a chocolate confection).
Our tiny troupe of hens has pecked a huge hole in the family purse, what with bijou housing, veterinary bills and fox-proofing the garden (not to mention the cost of the unlawful grazing of lettuces, flower buds, seedlings and other delicacies meant for our enjoyment, not theirs). When I tot up the outlay, each half-dozen eggs seems to have cost us 23. Or maybe it was 32.
But never mind. Our foray into backyard poultry farming was never going to be a money-saving operation. (Although, in five years, maybe, just maybe, we'll have recouped our costs.) No, we have hens for entertainment. The eggs are a bonus, as are the manure that enriches our compost heap and the fact that they wolf down small snails, vine weevils and maggoty undesirables.
Chicken-watching is an all-consuming pastime. I've had cups of tea grow cold when I've been absorbed by the poultry population playing out their daily lives. You have to watch closely, because everything happens at an accelerated pace in hen world, like a speeded-up film.
Take your eye off the ball for a minute and you could miss a scandalous scene of infidelity behind the bamboos, a bout of vainglorious strutting and posing or the tender moment of a shared worm. Chickens do to each other the things that humans are restrained from doing by politeness or the law. If you're a chicken and you don't like someone, you club them on the back of the head with your beak.
The cocks are the most entertaining, of course. Few things are as cheering as the sight of a proprietorial male going about his deeply serious, manly business while decked out in full fancy dress. (It is impossible to be in a bad mood around a bunch of chickens - except when they have demolished a row of fine, upstanding, tightly-rolled cos lettuces on the point of harvest.)
A rooster doesn't know it (and nor do a lot of humans), but his input is not necessary for a hen to lay eggs. Hens produce eggs naturally, as part of their womanly cycle. The bloke is required only to fertilise the eggs. In fact, hens are often happier in an all-girl gang, without the cock bossing them around and constantly importuning them for sex (from which they almost always flee). Nonetheless, gentlemen fowl can be breathtakingly handsome - and an awful lot of fun.
Their crowing lends a charming and bucolic note to an urban garden during the day - less so at the crack of dawn. Our roosters, therefore, sleep in the garage, which means that every night, hail, rain or snow, someone has to spirit them out of the coop when they are fast asleep on the perch next to their missuses. The only respite is a peaceful month in autumn when they are moulting and don't feel up to crowing.
The moult, I have to warn you, turns hens into threadbare and nearly bald birds, and it can be a disturbing event for the inexperienced poultry-keeper. But when the new feathers grow they are magnificent, thick and glossy.
In the city and suburbs, poultry enemy number one is the fox. Do not underestimate his savageness, resourcefulness and patience. A fox will visit every single night, checking the perimeters for the weak link or checking if the hen house has been left open - as I know to my lasting regret. (RIP Fatty, Broody and Cheepy.)
In the country, mink and pine martens can devastate a flock - and squeeze through a centimetres-wide gap. Unstinting vigilance, and a two-metre-high fence, may keep your hens out of the predator's maw, but the only sure deterrent is an electric fence.
Gardening with hens, I must admit, can be a little trying: the greenhouse door must always be buttoned up, food crops netted and emerging shoots protected from scratching feet and questing beaks. Nonetheless, in recent years, I've found that some of my best friends have feathers, so I don't mind a bit of amicable give and take. Having said that, if someone doesn't lay an egg tomorrow there will be trouble.
WHAT DO CHICKENS EAT?
You can give your flock household scraps as a treat (they love rice, pasta, bread and fruit), but a healthy hen needs a balanced diet. Layers' pellets, available from feed stores, are a complete food usually made from oils, grains and soya meal, with added minerals and vitamins (organic layers' pellets from Morrins's of Baltinglass, 059-6481122). Or you can give them a grain mix. Each hen requires 100g-150g a day. In cold weather, an evening snack of wheat keeps their crops full during the night.
Hens that range freely augment their diet with grass and greenery, protein-rich insects and creepy-crawlies, and the odd snail - the calcium helps build eggshells. If your chickens are confined to a run, you may need to give them crushed oyster shell (for calcium), greens and grit. The latter is essential for their digestion. As hens have no teeth, they swallow small stones to grind the food in their gizzards. Fresh water should always be available.
WHERE TO BUY THEM
If you want chickens solely for the eggs, you can pick up hybrids on "point of lay" (which means they'll start egging shortly) from a country market. If you hanker after purebreds, the Irish Society of Poultry Fanciers (see below) can put you in touch with a breeder. Never buy a hen that isn't healthy: it should have a perky demeanour, bright and alert eyes, clean feathers (especially around its bottom, or "vent"), smooth leg scales and a red comb (except in breeds with black combs). Bring along a big cardboard box, lined with wood shavings or straw, to transport the new chooks home, and keep them confined in a run for a few days while they settle down.
OTHER INFORMATION
For poultry equipment (drinkers, feeders, books and son on), try Mac Eoin General Merchants, Ballydavid, Co Kerry (066-9155479, www.dingle poultry.com). For poultry housing, look at www.forshamcottagearks.com, then order from Irish agents Grow Green Solutions, Killiskey Cross, Ashford, Co Wicklow (0404-49893, www.growgreensolutions.com).To find out how to build a movable coop, visit www.mother earthnews.com/arc/1039. If you're interested in maintaining breeds, contact the Irish Society of Poultry Fanciers, c/o Tracey Pullein, Gortavoher, Tubber, Co Galway, 091-633412.