Living the dream; working from home in the purpose built studio; growing tomatoes and brewing our own beer. Life is not bad, but what even better way to live this dream than to grow our own eggs too! So, after a couple of weeks locked away in the lab I conjured this up for Natalie’s birthday. I like a project. Major brownie points dished out as we arrived at the farm to choose the birds. Much googling had revealed that two chickens could be easily accommodated in the grounds of our three-bed semi, and it wasn’t long before Velma and Daphne were out of the run and exploring their new home.
Chickens are amazing! After a few weeks they began to lay deliciously tasting, perfectly formed goodness. They are child friendly, tame and inquisitive. Some may even say intelligent.
But.
I can still hear the constant tapping on the window as I sat at the PC. The girls thought that was cute but they got time off at school. I still have peck scars on my ankles as I negotiated my way up the garden, spilling the coffee. We couldn’t leave the kitchen door open because they would wander in and shit in the dining room. They shit in the studio if I left that open. They shit on the path. I cleared that up three times a day. They shit on the grass, in the flowerbeds, and on the windowsills. Grass became dirt. Dirt became shit. We invested in a composter, (living the dream). Everyone knows that boy chickens, (cockerels), make big cock-a-doodle noises but no one said anything about girl chickens, (evil, dirty bitches), and their incessant squawking as they followed me everywhere.
In short, (and I have honestly tried to keep it short), the dream rapidly turned into one big shit-stained nightmare. We gave them away to some nutter who was like some mad cat lady only with chickens.
So if you’re thinking chickens… go to KFC and enjoy them the way God intended.
