I remember a few years ago when i announced the cling film greenhouse to the sound of dissenting voices and they turned out to be right so the experience of other is certainly valuable. It was just funny that of the five people we spoke to here about chickens all of them had a long list of things that could potentially go wrong, without any indication that buying chickens is a worthwhile move. One of them even told us that gypsies have been known to steal chickens from this village! And i'm not really sure what to say about that. For now it would be impossible to protect against humans who hope to steal them. Perhaps we will get a dog who can live there?

Thanks for the protein tip. Will do what i can to make sure they get lots of bugs, worms & fly larvae. Am intending ultimately to have a bed exclusively for growing their food. We can't very well rely on buying grains while prices keep going up.

I looked up space required per chicken and i think with only four they should be okay with this enclosure. For two hours a day (minimum) they will run around the whole garden and hopefully not eat too much of our food!

Do you have any suggestions for how to keep them from getting bored?

Also, am interested to understand why you are not able to have chickens on your own?