Saturday morning, we drove up to Stebbing for our lesson on chicken keeping, and to pick up the first three members of our little home flock: Margot, Gerry and Barbara.

The lesson itself was both interesting and useful, and made us feel better about not picking up rescue hens from a battery farm. As Kirsty, the breeder selling us our chickens, explained, every regular hen you keep in your back garden means neither you nor your neighbours, to whom you’ll inevitably end up giving eggs, will be supporting the battery industry.

We never buy battery eggs anyway, but it was interesting what she also said about so-called ‘free range’ hens. Most of these never see the outside world at all and spend their whole lives in a crowded barn. This is because that’s where all of their food and water is kept, while the outside area to which they have access - on an industrial scale at least - is planted out with dull rye grass, which does nothing to inspire them.

The best eggs, if they’re not your own, are the woodland eggs you can buy in some supermarkets (Sainsbury’s in particular) where the chickens actually have an incentive to head out and enjoy the fresh air because they have access to woods, which more closely match the jungle forests in which they evolved.

So anyway, at the end of the session we loaded three chickens into a box, drove them home and then literally poured them out into their new home in the garden. They were reluctant to leave the box, and clearly a little bit scared as they refused to venture out into their run until we had cleared off on our bikes for the afternoon.

Gerry (above) has quickly established herself as our favourite. She’s a Bovans Amber, and slightly smaller than the other two in our flock. She was the first one to let us pick her up, and she sat quite happily on our laps enjoying a tickle as we drank our gin and tonic on Saturday evening.

Barbara (above) is a Sussex Ranger, and captured the heart of our neighbour who came around with his granddaughter to view the new arrivals. She has the silkiest feathers of the flock.

Margot (above) is a Maran Cuivre, and is the biggest of the flock. We had thought, as a result, that she would have been the dominant hen, but she is actually the most timid. She is quick to run away from the door whenever we open the run, and spent most of Sunday morning digging herself a hen-sized bowl at the back of the run where she could hunker down and bathe in the dust.

They are quickly establishing individual characters that will mark them apart just as clearly as the colour of their feathers, and we’re sure Gerry will become more of a pet than a pure egg-making machine.

Despite this, we’re going to try and remember that they are working animals with a short lifespan, so we shouldn’t be lavishing hundreds of pounds of medical care on them at the vet if they fall ill.

We’ve also been warned about spending too much time worrying about the consistency of their stools, which apparently becomes something of a chicken keepers’ obsession.

In the meantime we have to just sit back and relax and wait for our first eggs which, all being well, should arrive in six or seven weeks. Our pullets are just 17 weeks old right now, and won’t be productive until week 24.

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chicken, keeping chickens, poultry

In a rather exciting turn of events, we’re off to a chicken-keeping lesson on Saturday morning. It’s a 60-minute talk, followed by a 30-minute handling session where you’re taught how to pick them up, carry them around and clip their wings, and then some Q&A.

And, at the end of it, we’ll be picking up our first flock. We’ve ordered three feathered ladies, which even before they arrive have been christened Gerry, Margot and Barbara. We’ve gone for three different breeds to vary our egg production and hopefully ensure that we should have a nice daily supply of eggs throughout the darker winter months when chickens tend to lay a little less.

What are they? A Bovans Silver, a Bovans Goldline and a Rhode Ranger.

We’ve not yet broken the news to the cat that he’ll have to start sharing his garden with three birds bigger than any he’s seen before in his life.

The Cube arrived from Omlet last week. Very exciting. Having got permission from the council’s environmental health people to keep chickens in the garden, it was great to finally have their home arrive, despite the missing bolts and the fact they’d tried delivering it a day too soon.

It came in seven big, BIG boxes that took over the whole of the outhouse. The walk-in pantry, which would just about house a family car if you were a very careful driver, and the food prep room, which is the size of a small kitchen at the furthest end of the outhouse, were filled with boxes, walls, and the roosting bars and roofs of the coop. Some of it even spilled out into the corridor, which meant we had little choice but to squeeze past whenever we needed to collect any vegetables from the cupboards out there.

So it was good to finally unload it all into the garden yesterday, even if it did take up a good half of the lawn.

An Omlet Eglu Cube, in pieces

Putting it together was stupidly simple. You only need a screwdriver for the crosshead screws as the rest is put together by snapping in a series of green clips that secure the various parts of the run and the fox-proof skirt.

The instructions said it would take around two hours to complete, and that it would be good to get a friend to help which we assumed would cut that estimate. But it didn’t. Even with two of us at it, it took a good two and a half hours to get to the last instruction, at which point we found ourselves two bolts short. We found a couple of replacements in B&Q that we hope will fit the pre-drilled holes, but it rather took the shine off an otherwise excellent package.

Anyhow, the Cube is now complete, and all that’s left to do is phone one of the chicken suppliers listed in the table supplied with their future home to acquire our laying ladies. That won’t happen until we’ve been on holiday next month, so for the time being it’s sitting in the corner of the garden like a little Robin Reliant that’s lost one of its wheels.

Omlet Eglu Cube, complete

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There was a time when I was only about twice the height of a chicken. Look, here a picture to prove it:

Them there hens, which come up to the top of my 1970s flares are Gingernut Rangers, a prolific egg layer that were the bread and butter of the free-range family farm. (They were the lucky ones, as elsewhere there were fatter, more meaty birds destined for the dinner table.)

They had an idyllic life sleeping in bright, airy barns and being let out to roam free among the apple trees in the orchard every day. We spent summers there, Sal and I, helping to feed them in the morning and shut them up safe from the foxes at night.

Well, they say things go full circle, and while I may no longer be a flares-wearing shortie I’m about to launch myself back into the world of poultry and eggs, as I’ve put in an order for a coop. It won’t be here for another month, which gives me plenty of time to source my laying ladies, which have been named Margot, Gerry (Geraldine, not Gerald, natch) and Barbara even before they arrive.

Why three? Because you should always start with more than two. If you don’t, they’ll bond as a pair rather than a flock which leaves you somewhat stuck when one of them dies. The one that’s left will be simultaneously bereaved and unable to relate to any new chickens you buy to replace the dead one.

In the meantime, I have some learning to do, like what you feed them, how much you give them, and what you do when an egg gets stuck half-in, half-out.

Actually, I already know the answer to that last one - I just don’t want to think about it.

Fresh eggs every morning. You can’t beat them - especially not if you plucked them from under the chicken yourself.

Once you’ve checked with your local environmental health authority for any regulations that would forbid you from keeping poultry in your residential area, and re-read the deeds of your home for the same, it’s time to start deciding what to buy and where from.

Here’s Blagger’s ‘Friday Five’ rundown of the first sites you should turn to on the road to egg and meat self-sufficiency.

SOME HENS The Battery Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT) re-homes former battery hens once they have come to the end of their productive lives. Most battery hens are slaughtered when they are less than a year old, as their rates of laying drop fractionally. They’re then made into pet food.

The Trust rescues these hens and works to re-house them with at-home farmers who want a pair or more for their garden. The hens should still be highly productive, although they may be missing a small part of their beaks, which could have been snipped off by the farmer to stop them from pecking each other. There are Trust sites around the country, allowing you to do a good deed for local abused birds wherever you live.

If you’re still not convinced that you should rescue a hen, then check out the Trust’s Gallery of Spoilt Hens to see how friendly, sociable and happy they can be in the right environment.

HEN DIRECTORY If you’d rather buy your flock brand new, then check out the extensive list of breeds at Omlet. Very few sites give both pictures and characteristic of the most common breeds, yet this extensive egg-cyclopedia does both, with aplomb. If you need to match your hens to your hydrangea, or your bantams to your bougenvelia, this makes it about as easy as picking from the Argos catalogue.

Sadly Omlet won’t deliver livestock to anywhere more than two hours’ drive from its base in Oxford, so check here, and then buy elsewhere if you don’t fall within its catchment area.

HOMES FOR HENS We’re sticking with Omlet for our third recommendation, proving that this supplier really is the home farmer’s best choice for getting started with chickens.

You probably shouldn’t be building your own chicken run. It’ll save money, but it certainly won’t save time, and unless you get it right you’re going to end up with damp, unhappy and possibly unwell birds. The easy alternative is Omlet’s funky Eglus. These easily-maintained, easily-cleaned, double-skinned homes are ideal for between two and ten hens (depending which one you buy). They’re built with the busy owner in mind, with quick-access doors for retrieving eggs and topping up the food, and the whole thing can be easily dismantled and hosed down for hygiene.

Best of all, they come with a unique anti-fox skirt that should keep your feathery ladies safe from the nightly neighbourhood prowler. They’ve got so much confidence it will keep your flock safe that they’ve even given it a guarantee.

And, as the Eglu is plastic and metal rather than live animals, Omlet will even deliver it beyond it two-hour cut-off.

CHICKEN FEED Chickens love offcuts from your kitchen vegetable prep (and they’ll ransack your plot if you let them roam free) but you shouldn’t feed them on veg alone. They need a carefully-balanced diet including grit, pellets and corn. Fortunately it’s not expensive to kit out your chicken larder, and so you should look at getting in a supply of food before buying your birds.

Suppliers like Flyte So Fancy and G J W Titmuss supply poultry feed at excellent prices. Flyte is selling 20kg bags of Organic Mixed Corn for poultry for £10.95 - a mix that it claims will ‘provide the vitamins and minerals needed in a balanced diet’. Titmuss sells the same quantity of Small Holder Free Range Layers Meal for £6.95.

HEALTHY HENS Chickens can get sick, just like the rest of us, so being on good terms with your local vet is a must. However, a lot of problems can often be sorted at home, which is where the net can help.

The Urban Chicken wiki has pages on common ailments that can afflict your flock, including lice, worms, and impacted or watery crop. It gives some simple suggestions for diagnosing and remedying problems, but even if it doesn’t put your hens back on the road to rude health, it is at least a good starting point, allowing you to talk to your vet with some authority.

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Inclusion in this list should not be construed as recommendation.