Since getting an allotment in January 2006, Tim and I have longed for a smallholding. Lacking the funds that 10 acres and a little country house require, we have had to scale down our ideals to fit our means. Although we daydream daily about the possibility of living “The Good Life”, the inclusion of chickens in our lives seems the next logical step but also quite elusive.

I decided to do a little research into the keeping of chickens in one's own garden. There seem to be quite a few urban myths regarding the legal side of things in this particular matter. Having voiced my interest in poultry keeping with various people, everyone

                       
appeared to be an expert. “You can't keep chickens in your garden. It's a city!” said one of my friends. “You can keep chickens but only if it's ten feet from your house,” said another. “I doubt you'd be allowed to have chickens what with bird flu.” Deary me. So many obstacles to overcome. Let us demystify these myths:
                                             

Keeping chickens in a city

This is, it would seem, completely lawful. However, it's worth checking with your local authority. Having contacted Cardiff Council I received the following e-mail:

Thank you for contacting Connect to Cardiff, in regards to your enquiry, if you are a council tenant in regards to keeping Hens, cockerels or pigeons they can only be kept with prior written permission of the council. If you are not a council tenant then you will need to contact DEFRA for general enquiries.

No problems there, then. So, I contacted DEFRA who said:

Thank you for your email of 26 September to the Defra helpline about keeping poultry. I have been asked to reply.

Information on keeping poultry, including protecting them from avian influenza is available on the Defra website at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/farm/livestock/poultry/index.htm

  
                       
                         
You have to keep chickens ten feet from your house

Nonsense! See above. It might be dependent on your local authority but it's otherwise nonsense!
                                             
Avian Flu
                                             
  What a massive load of scaremongering avian flu seems to be. As one of my more intellectual friends says, “WE'RE NOT BIRDS”. So far, the human death toll for avian flu has been 200. Two hundred people have died WORLDWIDE from avian flu so far. That's not even 200 a year, just 200 so far. In comparison, since June 5, 1981, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has killed more than 25 million people and infected 40 million others. I feel pretty safe. The best way to protect your birds (and therefore yourself) from an avian flu “pandemic” is to put a roof over their heads so they are not infected by any rogue bird droppings. My favourite tip, however, came from Viz, which suggests that with
                       
the food you put on your birdtable, mix a little bit of Lemsip in.
                                             
Breeds                                    
After researching the limitations, I researched the birds. Suey and I went to visit her brother, Duncan and his wife Tracey, who already had chickens. They had a garden shed for the hen house and a fenced off area for them to run. There were around fifteen hens all wandering around. The hens were lovely but the cockerels were amazing. The males were extravagant and full of personality. I was quite taken with the blokey chickens for their character but they weren't practical for our needs. For a start they don't lay eggs and second of all they make a lot of noise! The hens were extremely interesting as they had so many different breeds in there, which gave me something to think about when I went home.  
                       
                                             
Originally I was going to get Black Rock hens, which are a cross between a Rhode Island Red and Plymouth Rock chicken. There were a few reasons why I decided to change my mind, however:

1) Attractiveness – At the end of the day I must be pretty shallow because Black Rock hens to me look like rat-faced pigeons. They are not particularly exciting to look at and my girlfriend, Suey, has spent the last three years making the garden look as interesting and attractive as possible. The last thing we want is ugly birds walking around the garden, messing up the place. What we needed was Audrey Hepburn in chicken-form.

2) Size – Black Rocks are large fowl and as such should have as much room as possible. Sadly, I don't have much space for chickens in the garden (I have around 3 square metres). I have read up that if you have a smaller amount of space then you should consider bantams. Seeing as there don't seem to be any hybrid bantams the pure breed route seemed the way to go.

3) Quantity – I was told that you should have at least three hens because they like company. However, the more chickens you have in a small amount of space the more likely it is that there will be a chance of illness within the flock. This steered me further towards bantams.

4) Snobbery – Having read Practical Poultry magazine, I was struck with the overall coverage of pure breeds, with barely anything on hybrids. Every month there's a feature on one particular pure breed and they always look so fancy and interesting. It would seem, however, that pure breeds aren't favoured as much as the hybrid option. I felt, in a snobby kind of way, that I should support the pure breeds by avoiding the easy-route hybrid option.

5) Layers - Although the Black Rock lays 280+ eggs in it's first year, it's a hybrid that has been bred that way. Ideally, I wanted a pure breed that would lay as many eggs as possible. Rhode Island Reds lay around 250+ eggs a year but they have the "ugly gene" that make the Black Rocks the hens that you don't want to stare at for too long.

So, what breed did I go for? I was thinking of Barred and Buff Plymouth Rock but I couldn't source any in Wales. The closest I could find to Cardiff was in Sussex! I admitted defeat with the Plymouth Rocks and it took Suey to find an alternative breed that I would love. We finally chose Wyandottes! There are all sorts of colours, which made it so much easier for us to decide on the breed because we wanted a variety of colour in our garden. Also, Wyandottes are very docile, friendly, lay 200+ eggs and are, more importantly, hardy.