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.