Hot tip

Courses: The Organic Centre: Tel: [phone]; email: [e-mail]

* Sarah Raven’s Cutting Garden: Tel: [phone]; www.thecuttinggarden.com; email: [e-mail]

* Ballymaloe Cookery School: Tel: [phone]; www.cookingisfun.ie; email: [e-mail]

Reference Books

* Small Scale Poultry Keeping, A Guide to Free-Range Poultry Production, by Ray Feltwell, Faber & Faber.

* Keeping Pet Chickens, Bring Your Garden to Life and Enjoy the Bounty of Fresh Eggs from Your own Small Flock of Happy Hens, by Johannes Paul and William Windham, Interpet Publishing.

* Chickens at Home, by Michael Roberts, the Gold Cockerel series, Domestic Fowl Research UK.

* Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance, Reflections on Keeping Chickens, by Martin Gurdon, New Holland.

Cookbooks

* Eggs, by Michel Roux, Quadrille Publishing, 2005.

* Irish Egg Cookbook, by Nuala Cullen, Gill & Macmillan, 2005.

* Get Cracking, by Alex Barker, Southwater (Anness Publishing) 2001.