Chickens Make Great Pets

When I drove home tentatively around this time last year, with six equally nervous chickens sitting in cardboard boxes in the boot of my car, it marked the start of a new adventure. You see, I went through childhood without ever stroking an animal. But that’s how things were in our household because as a Muslim, I was raised to shun dogs, no matter how cute. I remember being told they were ritually impure. Mum insisted on changing her clothes if so much as a dog’s tail brushed against her on the bus. This attitude transmitted to other animals and so, I went through childhood without ever making friends with an animal – and the only time I tried, my friend’s dog bit me! Needless to say, I never had a pet.

My attitude changed when I became a mother. I didn’t want my daughter, now six and three quarters, to inherit the unease around animals that I’d grown up with. Evidence suggests that children with pets have better self-esteem and social skills, so I thought having a pet would do her good, particularly since she’s an only child in a single parent family. But what’s the ideal pet when you’ve never been around animals? Despite Noorie’s arguments for something cute and furry that could sleep in her bedroom, we chose something far more practical. In a bid to overcome my own awkwardness, I reasoned that chickens give us food so surely I wouldn’t mind cleaning up after them. They’re also low maintenance, and it would be good for Noorie to learn that eggs don’t grow in Asda.

Chickens come in all different sizes, characteristics and temperaments – you choose according to your requirement – reliable egg production, a table bird, physical appearance or disposition. As family pets, we just wanted the friendliest and fluffiest variety. We even thought about newly hatched chicks until we realised most of them aren’t sexed until they’re a few weeks old, and we didn’t want to risk being stuck with a noisy cockerel! Then I read about cream legbars, an affable breed which can be sexed upon hatching, and has the added distinction of laying pale powder blue eggs. In the end, we settled on three robust chickens, each around four months old, and almost ready to start laying their first eggs – a speckledy, a white sussex and a gingernut ranger. We also bought three adorable chicks (two legbars and a salmon faverolle) that were just two weeks old.

I didn’t realise that choosing different sized birds would prove to be a major headache. I’d already spent a small fortune on a funky Omlet Eglu Cube for the chickens to live in, but now, I had to stop off at the pet shop to pick up a plastic hamster cage for the tiny chicks. They needed to live indoors for a few weeks and even if they could live in the chicken coup, they’d probably be bullied by the big girls, and possibly be pecked to death.

It shocked me how quickly the chicks rekindled my maternal instincts. If I woke up in the early hours to check on Noorie, then I’d tiptoe downstairs to check that the chicks were comfortable too. The chicks outgrew the hamster cage within a week so we got them a bigger one. If I left them in their cage on the garden table to get some fresh air on a warm day, then I’d dash home between meetings to make sure the sun wasn’t too hot for them. And if it started to rain, I’d rush home to rescue them.

Within a matter of weeks, the juniors were ready to spend more time outdoors, so they could practice running around and scratching in the grass, but they were still too young to spend the night outside. While the hamster cage still made a fine bed, it was time to arrange some temporary daytime accommodation – a small wooden predator proof enclosure. The chicks were growing fast but my maternal instinct didn’t diminish. After a particularly long day in London, I didn’t get back till after 11pm one night. I was guilt ridden as I dashed to the back garden and found the chicks huddled up together, bedding down for the night on the damp grass. I could sense their relief as I repentantly carried them inside to warmth and safety.

The next tricky task was introducing the junior chicks to the seniors, which had to be done gradually and under careful supervision to ensure the submissive ones didn’t get hen pecked, and if they did, they could be quickly rescued. So we placed the temporary chick enclosure next to the official henhouse and its dedicated run, so the older girls could get used to seeing and hearing the little ones, but without causing them any harm. And, for about an hour a day, armed with raisins, grapes, strawberries, tomatoes and other such treats to distract the big girls, we’d tentatively send the little ones in for a quick meet and greet!

It was all going so well and Noorie and I were feeling so proud that the chicks were finally sleeping outdoors, although still in the safety of their own enclosure. And then tragedy struck! Our favourite chick, a gorgeous salmon favourelle we’d named Fluffy because she literally looked like a ball of fluff, became poorly. We brought her inside and started giving her water with soluble chick vitamins through a pipette to keep her hydrated, but her health deteriorated. Collecting Noorie from school that afternoon, I had to prepare her to say goodbye to Fluffy. It was heart breaking to watch as she sang her a lullaby and tearfully insisted on carrying the little cardboard box that Fluffy was in – on her final journey to the vets. We were both so upset that even my mum popped round to offer her condolences.

That evening, the chickens – the seniors and the juniors – all seemed disorientated. They seemed still, silent and looked completely lost. They didn’t even cluck when I offered them marmite on toast – apparently a good stress buster! It was as though the chickens were mourning their loss. Although it was distressing to watch, I seized the opportunity to shake things up. And so, several hours after the seniors had gone to bed, I quietly added the juniors, the two cream legbars, to the flock. I stood outside the henhouse, in the dead of night, with torch in hand, and only went to bed once I was satisfied the chickens weren’t squabbling and that the little ones weren’t being harmed. I don’t understand how it works but if chickens wake up together, then they manage to be reasonably civil, even to new members of their flock!

A year on, what’s incredible is that the pecking order has remained the same, with the young legbars clearly at the bottom. It’s also heartening that these two remain the best of friends, although I don’t know if that’s because they look the same (they’re like identical twins) or because they’re the same age or just because they were roommates before moving in with the big girls. In any case, we feel particularly protective towards them because we cared for them from such a young age.

Pretty though they are, I have to say the legbars are a whimsical lot. They do lay the creamiest eggs I’ve ever tasted, but they really took their time to start laying, and even now their egg production is considerably lower than the others. One of them is always broody – in fact, they seem to take it in turns and it becomes such a nuisance – a broody hen is a moody hen, she stops laying and she hogs the nesting box all day so the others can’t lay either! In fact, the legbars are almost bare underneath where they’ve plucked out all their feathers to help their skin to make better contact with the eggs when they sit on them. The silly cows don’t seem to realise their eggs won’t be fertilised without a cockerel so they’re actually wasting their time! Not that we haven’t thought about this; it would be wonderful for Noorie to see chickens hatch one day, to experience the life cycle from scratch, but I think when the time comes, we’ll probably buy fertilised eggs for the hens to sit on, rather than find them a proper ‘boyfriend’.

I feel my approach to chicken keeping has really mellowed. I was really precious about the garden last year and preferred to confine the girls to their dedicated run, but I’ve gradually let them take over. So instead of dashing out with a wooden spoon, I now watch contentedly as they use the soft soil in the planters for their dust bath. And Noorie will gladly throw them raisins if they tap on the patio door looking for attention. It’s all I can do to stop her from inviting them in to watch TV with her! They don’t want for much really – all they do is scratch, peck and look for food all day long. They like to eat pretty much what we eat – fruit, veg, curry, roti, pasta, fish – anything except meat. I’d prefer fewer droppings on the decking, but I’m happy to let them free range because I’ve noticed they’re cheeriest when they’re active and busy, even if we do occasionally have to rescue one of them from the neighbour’s garden!

I don’t know how it’s happened, but over the last year, the chickens have completely transformed my attitude towards animals and they’ve managed to develop in me a new found empathy for pet owners. As much as Noorie would love to teach the chickens a few tricks, I suspect they’re not the sort of pet that would do well on Britain’s Got Talent! Still, our chickens have given us hours of enjoyment and hundreds of eggs, and we wouldn’t be without them.

Irna Qureshi blogs about being British, Pakistani, Muslim and female in Bradford, against a backdrop of classic Indian films.