Chickens and eggs

I wonder whether Orwell, for all his preoccupation with how many eggs his chickens were laying, had anything like John Cleese's gentle affection for his hens (watch the video clip)?

Of course, as I've heard from various backyard chook-keepers, how many eggs your chooks are laying per day is a big thing. It probably means the difference between a poached egg on toast and a quiche. And the difference between happy, contented hens and stressed or ill ones.

The tip-off for the video came via Cleese's Twitter feed (Camilla the hen is a bit of a star in Cleese's online efforts) and, of course, Orwell's diary has long progressed since I first blogged about it. The image, 'Sunrise Haiga 2000', is a creative Commons licensed Haiku digital art-work by monkeysox.