Chickens move up in pet pecking order

As Coco spots a snail and scoops it up in her mouth she darts across the garden, knowing full well her friends are going to be chasing after her.

She knows instinctively that Chanel is hot on her heels and as she skids to a stop she prepares to feel an angry peck on her head.

“My wife and I have great fun watching the chickens – it is more entertaining than a Benny Hill sketch,” says Chris Edwards from Brewood who has 10 hens. “We watch them for hours chasing each other around the garden and when one falls in the pool there is a right kerfuffle.

“Once there was a fox nearby and they caused a real fuss and quite often we have buzzards flying overhead and we find them cowering under the garden table – it is better than Big Brother.”

Chris, aged 50, is just one of a growing number of people who keeps chickens as pets. The Battery Hen Welfare Trust says the number of birds they home in the UK has gone up from 16,500 in 2006 and 29,272 in 2007 to 61,000 in 2008.

Chris now has 10 birds which consist of two Cream Leg Bars, two Black Silkies, two Well Summers, two Light Sussex breeds and two Cuckoo Marans.

He says: “I’m a builder with my own business and two years ago I bought an old milking parlour just outside Brewood and turned it into a house. It has half an acre of land and I started working on a vegetable garden but wild rabbits ate everything.

“I thought about fencing the vegetables in and decided I might as well keep chickens. A girl who keeps horses in the field next to the house also keeps chickens, and she gave us our first four. They were Silkies – two white and two black.

“We bought the coop on the internet and discovered how more people are keeping chickens as pets,” he says. “I think it is partly down to celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall with his television series. People think they need a lot of space to keep chickens but a relative of mine, Stuart Harrison and his wife Kelly came to see the chickens and thought it was a wonderful idea.

“Everyone in our house loves eggs, including our dog Indie, so they don’t go to waste.”

Chris and Lynne, who have a 27-year-old son called Ryan, usually start the day by checking on the hens and making sure they have enough food.

“I first tend to the hens on my way out in the morning to take Indie for a walk and I change their water and feed them wild bird corn,” says Chris.

“I buy the corn in big sacks which cost around £7.50 and last for a month.

“The dog loves the chickens and likes to go mooching around them and rounding them up.

“Chickens make really nice pets and are simple to keep, but you have to look after them.

“There is an eight-year lifespan for a chicken and you can buy them for around £3. Although we paid £28 for the pair of Well Summers and £26 for the two Light Sussex.

“However, it doesn’t matter what what breed you get, hens are not very nice to each other – I can see where the term hen-pecked comes from.”