Long life | 5 January 2017

The past year has been tumultuous, full of upheaval and tragedy, but my chickens have been spared it all. Indeed, their year has been unusually pleasant and peaceful. After years in which they have been regularly subjected to murderous assaults by foxes and dogs, they were finally fenced into a section of the garden that savage animals could not penetrate. In consequence, there has been a year of rare tranquillity in the chicken world.

The worst that my little flock of six chickens has had to endure is the company of a guinea fowl, which I originally got because guinea fowl have a reputation for being good guard birds that make a great din whenever a predator is in the vicinity. But this particular guinea fowl is interested more in bossing chickens than in protecting them. The name given to it by Freya, my 11-year-old daughter, was Meany-Bully, because one name wasn’t adequate to cover the full range of its character defects.