Domesticated Chickens

The chicken was first domesticated from the Red Jungle Fowl and is thought the original hybrid was a cross with the Red and Grey Jungle Fowl. First domesticated around 8000 years ago and not just once but from several sources across South East Asia.

The chicken first arrived in the UK with the Romans with a breed thought to be the Dorking. Dorking’s are now very rare but we are trying to acquire hatching eggs from two unrelated sources in 2018.

Chickens are not just the standard brown hybrids which supply the supermarkets with eggs but come in all sorts of sizes and shapes and are huge fun and characters to keep. We have some delightful but tiny Silver Seabright Bantams as well as Old English Game which were the chicken’s once used for fighting in the cockpit and a breed that is getting very rare. We also have Brahmas, big gentle but impressive chickens that were thought to have been presented to Queen Victoria on her coronation. We also have Pekin bantams that look like miniature feathered footballs and come in all sorts of colours.

We try and keep two unrelated lines of all of our birds and hatch eggs throughout the year and have most of our lovely breeds available for you to buy. If you’re thinking of keeping a few chickens as pets with the added benefits of fresh eggs then we are happy to chat. Keeping hybrid chickens is not usually the best bet for a garden pet.