Day 2

Yay! The chickens survived the night!!! Mr Fox and his safe-cracking crew didn't come and crow-bar open the coop overnight. The ladies appeared well rested when I released them from their coop this morning.

Mr Fox aka Monsieur Renard aka tUstal Madra Rua appears to be keeping a respectful distance so far- No frantic clucking in the night, no scratch marks on the coop and no sign of a Vulpes equivalent of a Time Team dig around the run.

No eggs yet but the hens are only 17 weeks old- I've been told they'll arrive next week.

Day 1

Yes, my chickens have arrived!!! Tom delivered 2 Rhode Island Red hybrids this evening along with coop and run (hand-made by the man himself and I must say the guy knows his way with a plank of wood and a saw; really well made) plus food, bedding and feed and water trays.

My wife's reaction was quite interesting- up to now it's been "it's your project!" but once the ladies were installed I could see she was quite taken with them. She grilled Tom on the usual questions "will they attract rats?" and "what about the fox?". Meanwhile Sophie (my 7 year old daughter) is in playing with and hugging the hens.

However our dog Penny (a heinz 57 breed) went absolutely nuts- She kept flinging herself at the run and then started tugging at the bars to get in. Unfortunately in her mania she forgot she was wearing her electronic collar and got a little too close to the "invisible" fence and she got a shock. Our dog now thinks that the chickens zapped her with some form of psychic hen mind power- but the plus side of this it has made her respectful of the ladies.

Kick-starting out.

Enter Tom and tippychicks.com. Wandering around my favourite market (Dun Laoghaire in the Peoples Park every Sunday) I came across a new stand. Tom, a very enthusiastic chicken farmer (rumour has it that he sometimes moonlights as a stone-mason) and his wife have set up a small business that provides everything for the aspiring chicken wranger. He went though all the basics of day-to-day chicken care, how many eggs to expect and the types of breed they supply. Most importantly he gave me his mobile phone number (he may yet regret that). I put down my money and the date was set for chicken delivery.

Starting out.

Okay, so I know it's not as easy as throwing a couple of chickens in your back garden and feeding them scraps, so I did a little research. Soon I had a shopping list- On top of the chickens, you need a place for them to sleep/lay, bedding, a run, layer pellets (special chicken food to supplement the scraps), feeders and waterers. So now I knew what I needed the next problem was going to be sourcing the items. Also, I wanted some "hand holding"- not that I expected chicken farming to be particularly difficult and I also know the internet is a great resource but I did feel that I needed a safety net in case of emergency. So between this worry and having to track down all the bits I needed, the idea got put on the back burner.

Prologue.

I've always been interested in having a couple of chickens. I think it might be genetic- A lot of my ancestors were either farmers or farm labourers so maybe the chicken-owning gene skipped a couple of generations and ended up in me.

Of course the other reason is a bit more mundane. I've always liked the idea of producing my own food but always had a problem with growing fruit or veg- or more precisely, fruit and veg had a problem with me. And then there's the waiting- I can't be bothered to wait 2-3 months for a carrot. And then there's the rumours I've heard about "watering" and "weeding". Apparently plants need a lot of this.

So my interest was peaked with chickens. The interesting thing about chickens is that if you talk to anyone above a certain age they all say how they used to keep chickens when they were young. And the one thing that they all agree on is how effortless it is to keep chickens. Baring the odd fox strike, the hens would lay whole mountains of eggs and when the time came they would throw themselves on the roasting tray, plunked, stuffed and ready to go.

Sounds like my kinda gig.

Now all I needed to do was to find someone to sell me a couple of chickens. Turns out it was a little bit more difficult than I had anticipated...

TBC.