Whilst he’s always given the impression that he’s a mild mannered general ‘good egg’, it was rather surprising to see Joe Allen pop up on the front cover of Chicken & Egg magazine.
In between being the most reliable midfielder in the Premier League, regularly being the focus for the best bookmakers in UK and their punters, Allen has become quite the chicken connoisseur.
This Springs edition of the magazine (a welfare and food magazine published by the British Hen Welfare Trust), the current Liverpool midfielder talks about the 16 pet chickens he and his wife Lacey tend to at their family homestead in Wales.
He goes on;
Lacey was behind the decision. We both have an interest in animal welfare but she came up with the idea to save hens and I agreed it was something that would be great to do.
We didn’t have any hens growing up but wanted to help chickens after they finished their commercial lives.
We began with four hens but our flock has steadily grown to 14 hens and 2 cockerels.
Just for reference, his cockerels are called Bruce and Rodney, while the hens are named Meg, Leg, Silkie Steve, Kate, Silkie Steve Jnr., Giblets, Snowy, Nugget, Kiev, Dora, Holly, Shimmer, Shine and Chickaletta.
Lovely stuff….