I've often daydreamed about keeping chickens. Admittedly, in my egg-collecting fantasy my garden is more colourful than when Judy Garland first steps out into Oz, but I am not alone in wishing for a more self-sustaining lifestyle.
There's an increasing appetite for growing your own in this country and suburban gardens are filling with the sound of clucking. In fact there are now more than 500,000 urban chickens, according to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Keeping chickens can be a fun hobby and a great education for kids. It's also good if you're concerned about animal welfare and want to know exactly where your eggs come from. But will it save you money?
To find out, I spoke to one woman who says she's saving £22 a month with her four chickens.
Saving £264 a year on eggs
Jenny, 35, lives with her husband Fabrice and new-born baby Arienne. She's kept chickens for two years now, having wanted to for 30 years. Jenny says she's definitely saving money keeping hens.
Her hens cost £5.50 each and she paid £150 for a second-hand coop from the Preloved website.
"My birds produce about 100 eggs a month, which I'd pay about £32 for if I bought them from the supermarket," she explained. "I spend around £10 a month on feed, straw, sawdust and pesticides, so I'm about £22 up."
But that's only a saving if she would actually buy that many eggs, so is she eating them all? "Eggs on toast, eggy bread, quiches…" she listed. "Honestly, if we didn't have chickens then we wouldn't eat this many eggs. But because we do have them, we eat them and that saves money on more expensive proteins like meat."
So, Jenny's saving money with her birds. But anyone following in her footsteps had better be sure they like eggs if it's going to make economic sense.
Jenny and her chickens
Cheaper chickens
Even free-range, organic chicken producers are farming thousands of hens in order to keep individual egg costs down.
So, while Jenny can save cash with her hens, what about me and you? The website The Poultry Pages has a good section on the economics of keeping chickens domestically.
It has worked out the average cost, including buying the coop, the birds and the food, at around £24.30 a year per hen, assuming you keep three hens and use the coop for 10 years.
Each bird should produce 200 or more eggs a year, meaning a cost of around 12p an egg. You can pay between 24p and 29p for a medium-sized, free-range supermarket egg, so as long as you are eating every one that's laid, you should save some cash.
But the savings aren't huge compared to the work involved, so I don't think keeping chickens is a money-saving tip that suits everyone.
However, if you want to keep chickens because it looks like fun then you can save money — as long as you'd normally buy that many eggs, or can sell some to friends.
[See also: What supermarket economy ranges actually taste like]
Pets or produce?
Keeping chickens has been a bit of an emotional journey for Jenny. Not only has she lost some birds to a crafty fox, she's also spent £40 to have a sick hen put to sleep.
"The vet asked if the chicken was just for eggs or a pet. I said she was just for eggs but I was sobbing," she admitted.
Since I'm a vegetarian (or as one friend of mine puts it, 'spud-botherer'), this is what puts me off keeping chickens. I don't think I could treat them as egg production units, they'd inevitably become pets.
That means pricey vet trips and lengthy, unproductive retirements. Chickens can live for eight years but they won't necessarily keep laying eggs. You might be able to harden your heart and have them destroyed when that happens but I'm not sure I could.
A final word on poultry perils
If you do decide that chooks are for you, be careful. You have some legal responsibilities that may not be immediately obvious.
For example, it's actually illegal to feed chickens with waste from your kitchen, so don't assume you can save cash with recycled feed. Also, some housing estates have covenants that prevent you from keeping livestock.
There's some good advice available on Directgov for anyone who's just starting out.
Do you keep chickens or any other livestock? I'd love to hear about your experiences and whether or not you save cash overall, so please leave a comment and let me know.
Felicity is Yahoo! Finance's new money-saving columnist. If you have a money-saving scheme you'd like to see tried out then let us know in the comment box below.
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