Treated like royalty in a very British coop

DONNA ILIFFE-POLLARD, 52, is a children’s author and ghost writer and lives near Leeds with her husband Jason, 51, who owns an electrical business. She says:

CHICKENS came into my life 13 years ago after my dad died and i read that they can be therapeutic during grief.

My nickname is Donna Dolittle thanks to my love of animals, so i bought a few and fell in love with them.

But i didn’t feel the same about the boring coops we used to have, so when i spotted a cute, pale blue, 5ft tall rabbit hutch for £99 in a pet shop a few years ago, it was a light-bulb moment: i would buy it and turn it into a Cluckingham Palace!

First, i put it on stilts as chickens like to be off the ground, and secured it on a bed of concrete so that foxes can’t dig down from outside the run to get inside.

Wire grilles on the windows were replaced by pieces of shiplap cladding, and i painted the timber a clay colour with white window frames, and used stencils to add pink flowers to the front.

Cerise pink steps lead down from the front door to Cluckingham Palace gardens — a covered, galvanised steel mesh pen that’s 10 ft tall and 12 ft wide with screening on two sides.

in one corner is a wooden swing with cerise faux flowers entwined around the ropes, plus decorative tubs, plants, buckets and feeders for them to play with.

But it doesn’t stop my six hens from wandering into our cottage — when they’re not in lockdown — and following me round the kitchen.

not only do they live in luxury, they feast on grapes, grated cheese, peas, dried mealworms and sweetcorn, and if they see me in the garden with a trowel in my hand, they swamp me as if to say: ‘she’s here and it looks like she might dig up some worms!’