When I first started keeping hens I didn't realise how much enjoyment and entertainment I would have. Nor did I realise just how much I had to learn.

I started with an allotment happily growing vegetables for many years. Then I asked for hens for my birthday that would eat the pests and weeds on my allotment. They would fertilise it naturally. They would save me lots of gardening time and leave me with the fun bits - planting and harvesting. Oh, and they would lay some eggs; at this stage the eggs were a bit of an afterthought. Roger had kept chickens before and assured me it wasn't tricky. He made a hen house from reclaimed wood (an old kennel). He bought me hens for my birthday (point of lay Warren hybrids - did I really need 10?!!). They were happy and friendly, and they helped me to garden.

The first egg was amazing Having always had supermarket eggs after they had been in the fridge for a while, and often past their best-before date, fresh eggs hot from the hen were fabulous. Beautiful firm whites, golden yellow yolks and glorious taste. I'm sure everyone keeping hens for the first time feels exactly the same as I did then when their hens start to lay.

Then one of my Warrens went broody. Hybrids aren't supposed to go broody but this one hadn't read the book. She was firmly sat in the nest box and instead of her usual friendly nature she pecked at us as we sneaked the eggs out from under her and grumbled at us loudly. There was no cock around, so the eggs would never have hatched but she was guarding them ferociously anyway. So the hunt was on for some eggs for her to sit on. We chose some old breeds and collected the eggs. Miss Broody the hen settled down on them and we moved the other hens to a new house so that she had peace and quiet. They were due to hatch 21days later on a Sunday when two of my nieces were staying. I warned them not to get too excited, just in case we had no luck, but I needn't have worried. We peeked in at the hen and heard the chicks cheeping under her. She hatched four chicks, three Cochins and a Rhode Island Red, although one Cochin didn't survive more then a couple of days, and I haven't looked back. I visited the local auction - what a range of shapes, sizes and colours! I visited the National Poultry Show at Stoneleigh - even more diversity, and eggs shown too. Not just all the shades from white to deep brown and speckley, but blues and greens too. My Warrens laid beautiful big tasty eggs, but now I wanted fancy hens and eggs in beautiful colours too.

I bought some Orpingtons in various colours, and a small incubator so that I could reliably hatch out my pure breeds. They all needed to be in separate pens (obviously) so that the breeds and colours didn't get mixed up. The incubator was constantly producing chicks and if anything, it is more exciting to have chicks hatching in an incubator so that their struggles to get out of the shell are visible. The mother hens would cluck to encourage their struggles so (am I mad?) I cluck at them periodically too. With the incubator permanently occupied hatching the traditional breeds I resorted to a broody hen for my fancy coloured egg project. The next time one of my hens went broody I searched for suppliers of fertile eggs from anything that would lay dark brown or blue eggs. I waited for them to hatch. Three eggs hatched, and I waited and watched. Would they be girls?

Would I have lovely coloured eggs?

Two were Araucanas, and very different sizes. Would they be a pair? After a few months I realised they were ALL cockerels. I was so disappointed, but I wasn't going to give up.

I moved each of the cockerels in turn into a pen with Warrens. The cockerels carry the genes for coloured eggs and hardiness, the Warrens were good egg layers. The combination, if I were lucky, would produce hardy hens, regularly laying large pretty coloured eggs. My first generation hens from the Araucana crosses laid eggs which were light olive green in colour. The hens were small or medium framed, but they laid large eggs, as big as the Warrens. Several generations later the hens lay blue or green eggs, are small to medium size, and hardy. Some of the hens are quite tiny but still lay large eggs.

The hens have very mixed parentage and come in colours from white through to black and mixtures in between. It doesn't matter about keeping the hens as separate colours, since the important selection factor is the egg colour, so I don't need to know which hen has laid which egg. The result is constantly surprising (isn't that half the fun?), producing some truly beautiful hens, although being mongrels they will never win a prize at a show.

One additional benefit of these hybrids is their egg laying productivity. Last summer, every one of my Orpington hens went broody at least once, none of the hybrids I bred myself did. So, while I was juggling a variety of broody Orpingtons, I had beautiful coloured eggs to eat from my happy hybrid hens.

I sell hatching eggs and hens and anyone interested in a chat, or stock, can contact me on 01799 526294 (phone and fax) or clare@slade-cottage.freeserve.co.uk National Poulty Show, Stoneleigh 3 - 4 February 2007 01476 550 067 www.poultryclub.org