My Uncle Harry kept chickens, but he wasn’t really my Uncle. Uncle and Aunt were terms that were often used in our family for non-family members over a certain age who held a position that should be respected. So “Uncle Harry” was in fact my Godmother’s Father, there was a distant connection through second marriages but no direct bloodline linkages.
Each school holiday we would go and visit Uncle Harry and Auntie Dora and their chickens. At the end of their long garden was a purpose built (thinking back I wonder whether this was actually an old brick built air raid shelter that had been converted) brick chicken house and run which took up quite a bit of the garden.
He had around a dozen or so chickens in there and the highlight of a visit would be to walk down to the end of the garden and check to see if there were any eggs, which we would collect and take home a half-dozen. We had to be careful not to collect the china eggs (which were there to encourage the hens to lay) or let the hens escape from their run, and if we timed it right give them a scoop of feed.
On one occasion I got to go with Uncle Harry to collect some new hens. I don’t remember where exactly we went other than it was out in the countryside somewhere to a farm where there were hundreds of chickens all running around. I was told to wait by the car as I watched him and some strangers corral a few birds and place them in a couple of cardboard boxes which went into the car boot and back to Uncle Harry’s house, where they joined his other birds.
He kept his chickens for their eggs and as far as I know they were never kept for the pot, even when they got old and stop laying.
As you’ll know if you’ve been reading these posts for a while we will shortly be moving house. Although it won’t happen right away one of my goals is to have chickens of my own. It’s something I could have done before now, but it often felt like we didn’t have enough space or there was another reason why it wouldn’t have worked.
I know that our chickens will effectively become pets, so will hopefully provide us with eggs and be responsible for some pest control in the garden. I have some experience of chicken keeping but that knowledge is probably rusty, so I’ll be treating it as a learning curve and a new experience. As pets I suspect that all of the hens will end up with names and if we should get a rooster he will of course be known as Harry and if not I dare say there’ll be hens Harriet and Dora.
Thanks for reading.