Annie Green, UK

My hen story is a word of caution. Please don't read this if you are easily upset by the death of a hen.

I had had my hens for about 6 months and had never had any problems from Mr Fox. All three of my girls free ranged in the garden and were 'secure' inside a 6ft high fence. My dog, Stanley, would never let anything in to the garden, not even a strange cat and we had/have cats of our own but he still wouldn't let other cats in.

I would stand and watch my girls digging about and pulling up the weeds and plants and often reminded myself that I really must get a run... one day soon.

On a rather warm sunday afternoon the girls were indeed free ranging and I was out with them pottering around in the garden. Eventually my daughter knocked on the door for a coffee, she lives 6 doors away, and it was nice just to sit and chat together without my beloved grandchildren stealing all the attention. I love them to bits but sometimes you just want a one to one girly chat. So I popped the kettle on and we soon settled down at the kitchen table for our much missed chinwag safe in the knowledge that my girls were being cared for by Stanley. After a few minutes we heard one of the chooks squawk then some kind of banging noise. Both myself and my daughter were out of our seats and into the garden in a flash, closely followed, then overtaken, by Stanley. The banging continued for what seemed like forever and it took us a few minutes for fathom out which direction the banging was coming from. My two other chooks were hiding behind me as quiet as mice.

Me and daughter raced to the bottom of the garden and into the bushes just in time to spot Mr Fox jump over the fence into next doors garden. I swear he had nothing in his mouth and he wasn't alone with my poor chicken long enough to do anything but kill her. We knew she was dead and searched for a very long time to find her body but she was gone. We never found her and we were both heart broken. It was my fault and I will never forgive myself for being so complacent. Now I have 9 chickens and all of them are housed in the biggest run I could fit into my garden. They still free range but only when I can stay out there too. If anyone knocks on my door I ignore them. My girls are far too precious to risk them again.

Mr and Mrs Ritson

Wilfred Wales

Sally, Portsmouth

Last July, I had read about hatching and thought that sounded fun to do with my son who loves science so we built an incubator and hatched a few ducks and chickens over his birthday. We like animals and fresh produce so it seemed like a nice ecological project. We raised them until a fox got them at Xmas, now we are awaiting the hatching of our new flock.

It would be lovely, but unrealistic for us to be self sufficient, but it is practical and economic for us to keep chickens, ducks and grow vegetables. It is good for the children to recognise that cockerels are butchered for every hen (in our case fed to the dog) and to recognise a little more about how the food they eat came about, not to mention interesting to see the eggs development.

Set up consists of an outside hen coup for ten birds in an 3.5mx3.5m enclosed pen. In the summer they are often let out to free range while supervised.

Currently there is only the three survivors, two road island reds and a partridge silkie, there was prior to xmas also a light Sussex, a hybrid large fowl like a bluebell, a white silkie, a cuckoo maran and a ginger hybrid hen. Ducks there were two runners and an Aylesbury drake. One of the runners was very imprinted so she would sit on laps and have cuddles, all would eat from your hand and come running and shouting if you came near them. The kids used to catch big garden spiders in fishing nets and the chickens would go nuts squabbling over them. Names Bean the imprinted runner duck (runner bean, cocobean as she was chocolate and jumping bean as she was a very very bouncy duckling), jasmine the drake, scamp the other runner, flutter the bluebell type, buttercup  the light Sussex rooster, maria the ginger hen.

Pros: fresh eggs, company, fun, no slugs or snails, educational, quicker composting, nice being out with them.

Cons: mess of chicken duck poo everywhere, dig up the lawn, responsibility of early morning let out, hard work mucking out!

Doris, Heworth

My son used to keep hens and ducks: Daffy, Donald and Micky. And then he had the hens but the fox got the whole lot. They used to come in the house - they used to come in and walk around. But the fox got them all - he got some more but it happened again, so that's when he gave up. He shot a fox once. He went to the police and asked if he was allowed and after that they said he was, so he got a gun and shot the fox. I couldn't do it but he did. He had a big garden and he just liked them, and the kids liked them. They used to pick them up and play with them - they were very tame.