I seem to have a chicken collection. This started by accident when my daughter Louise bought me a beautiful painted bird for my birthday about 10 years ago to sit in our newly fitted kitchen. Since then, the flock seems to have grown of its own accord!
I enjoy my colourful indoor menagerie but have mixed feelings about the real thing. My most unusual encounter with poultry was in Key West, at the southernmost point of the USA. I opened the front door of our holiday cottage and who should be stood there but a fine Rhode Island Red cockerel preening himself and showing me and my camera his best side.
Over the remainder of that holiday, we realised that there were chickens everywhere in this vibrant and very busy town. Cars stopped for them, cyclists rode around them and pedestrians ignored them. Later we were told that the original birds had come to Key West with the Cuban workers over 150 years before – not to eat but for the cock fighting that they enjoyed. Eventually this barbaric sport was outlawed, and it was assumed that the birds would gradually die out. As you will see from my pictures, they have not done so and are now protected. Harming one of these birds could get you a jail sentence!
When Bill and I bought our home, Pinks Barn, here in the UK, we were surprised to find that there were various covenants regarding the property. One of them was that the building could only be used as a home or a high-class restaurant, and the other was that we could not keep chickens. I understood the restaurant bit because the building had been a very classy restaurant when we first moved to Fairford (so classy, we never managed to eat here) but am still not sure why chickens would be a problem. Thankfully they were not on my wish list, as I love being a dog owner and we also have foxes in the garden – and once in Bill’s study!
You can see the snaps of my collection of chickens – now a trend rather than an accident.
