Chickens chickens everywhere and not an egg to eat!

We have a chicken and duck issue - which is proving a challenge for me.  There is no doubt that D loves these creatures more than much else - the dogs (Amigo and Festa) are possibly on the same rung of the ladder of affection with elephants! 

He was sure that if you took an egg away from any of his dears they would not lay...well that was his justification for breeding what can now only be described as a chicken and duck farm.   I counted 48 the other day and another 4 chicks appeared yesterday.  Even elderly blind Super Chicken, who survived an eagle attack when she was airlifted and walked for 9 days back to Mareja (and is at least 150 in chicken years), is sporting one prized new child!

(Once D tantalisingly flicked his wrist at a gathering of young cockerels and said ‘they are Soup Chickens’, I miss heard and said ‘what more Super Chickens?’ – ‘no, no Soup Chickens, perfect for soup.’  But that appears to have been a momentary lapse of concentration on his part.  Those young cockerels now contribute to the quite deafening morning chorus I wake to.)

While I was away I received an excited text which read ‘we have babies’ – gosh whose, my mind span with anticipation – elephants, his?  ...It was the duck’s. Cashew (the sister of Brazil) had 4 ducklings who have been given a lovely pen with a small pond and are hand fed by D twice a day.  (He is breeding yet more ducks that will attack my legs, mistaking them for D’s outstretched hand with nice white bread.)

Well I was in fact brought up on a chicken farm and I worry that this is some sort of cycle repeating itself.  We moved when I was 6 from the delights of Gloucestershire with its hedgerows full of cow parsley and buttercups to an intensive chicken farm (6,000 in three sheds) in Herefordshire.  We had our own beloved chickens too, saved from The Shed, because they were slightly different and likely to be bullied – coloured dots, squwiffy beaks... 

Anyway I realise I know quite a lot about chicken, like they do lay if you take their eggs away. 

For years I didn’t eat chicken at all as I am strongly opposed to battery farming, it is cruel and unnecessary.  But this loving free-range upbringing is far from intensive 1^st world production....and now I find myself in the awkward position of thinking we really MUST kill some chickens or at least eat their eggs.  AND first on my list for a nice roast supper would be the duck that attacks me in the fridge room..!   What has happened to me?

Chickens chickens everywhere and not an egg to eat.  Chickens chickens everywhere and all about my feet.  Chickens chickens everywhere and still no juicy meat!