Chickens are sticklers for routine. Ours expect me to be present when their electronic door opens around 7am. A crowd with no manners at all comes rushing out into the run. They stand on each others’ heads, squeal in outrage and generally huff and puff. It’s usual chicken society, that is. If their breakfast and drinking water aren’t waiting for them, however, all hell truly breaks loose.

I was late this morning, so when I went outside they were all waiting for me, beaks up to the mesh, eyes displaying a mixture of concern (not for me—for the whereabouts of food, of course) and anger (“Give us food, human slave!”). I found myself rushing down there with the feeder, apologising—yes, saying sorry to a bunch of girly birds—while enduring the painful chastisement of various screeches, hoots, squawks and growls.

It didn’t stop for over ten minutes, continuing while I filled their drinker from the outside tap. As with the feeder, I dashed down the garden to get the drinker into the run in the hope it would put a stop to their jabbering. But no. The scandal and outrage at my perceived lack of consideration for their needs continued. I tried chucking them some placatory nasturtium leaves (very good in salads, by the way, as are the flowers). That didn’t work. I mean, they ate them but one hen in particular, the bossy Cuckoo Marans called Hepburn, stuffed her crop while giving me an accusatory eye and she seemed able to berate me while swallowing food at the same time.

It is important to work with animals’ natures, and not against them. To an extent, at least. I do the best I can but I’m not getting up at 3am. Chickens rise with the sun and go to bed when night falls, which is acceptable in urban surroundings only in the winter but not summer. They’d wake the neighbourhood. The electronic door can be set to operate according to light levels—light increases, door opens, light decreases, door closes—but thankfully there’s the option to set it to open and close at specific times instead.

Chickens undoubtedly like routine but they can adapt to new routines and do, fairly quickly. I’d actually say chooks adapt quicker than cats and dogs. Our feathered fiends get up and go to bed when they want to in the winter because they won’t disturb foolish humans who get up when it’s still dark at 6am or 7am to go to work. If I lived on a farm I’d happily let the girls get up and out at dawn in the summer. It’s not me who made the society in which I live so innately hostile to the ways of Mother Nature.

Chickens eat more food in the winter months even though they actually get very few hours of active daylight, the dark hours being spent asleep in their coop. In the summer, after pigging out every morning, they spend a lot of their time strolling around, interacting with one another and continuing the never-ending quest to eat all the worms on the planet.

And, on the rare occasions when I’m late, I get sworn at in chicken language instead of my usual chirpy greetings. Being frank, I didn’t feel it was undeserved—but give me a break, girls, I’m only human and at least you’ll never end up on our dinner table. Perhaps that’s why they have a go: they know I’m a soft-hearted vegetarian, and they definitely know they’re spoiled rotten.