For many of Britain’s million-plus domestic chickens, it must be beginning to feel as if there are two tiers of hen in this land.

We have on the one side the common, dare I say, bog-standard domestic fowl that pecks in every weather, perching in drafty wooden enclosures, and then there is the other.

These chickens mostly live in rural settings, eat commercial seed and vegetable waste and, when the great coop in the sky beckons, are despatched briskly and firmly — or, rather too often, they’re bundled off into the woods by a greedy fox.

And then there are the ‘Eglu’ chickens, who live a different life altogether.

Ironically, these birds get retro names such as Mabel or Vincent. They are beloved pets.

They enjoy hot-water bottles on frosty nights, little green plastic swings in their coops and — when the temperature really dips — some of them sport £9.99 thermal jackets with a heat-reflecting lining designed by NASA in either hi-vis pinks and yellows, or perhaps a fetching tweed (yes, really).

They are loved and cared for by their owners. Others take them on walks with their owners. Others bring them in at first rain, to play and snuggle on the couch or scratch around the kitchen.

These ¿Eglus¿ are a firm favourite of the urban, and suburban, middle-classes who have taken up chicken-keeping, and poshies playing at being farmers

These ‘Eglus’ are a firm favourite of the urban, and suburban, middle-classes who have taken up chicken-keeping, and poshies playing at being farmers

Their silky soft feathers and bright personalities amaze them. People take endless pictures of them, then tell everybody how they help relieve stress.

Home for these chickens is a bright plastic henhouse made from recyclable, energy-efficient moulded polymers in fetching green, yellow or red, costing up to £749. These ‘Eglus’ are a firm favourite of the urban, and suburban, middle-classes who have taken up chicken-keeping, and poshies playing at being farmers.

Everybody who’s anyone seems to have one.

Last year, even David Cameron was photographed desperately trying to assemble an Eglu Cube — the biggest model, of course, fit for between six to eight birds — in his Cotswolds garden.

And it goes without saying that when Jolyon Maugham QC famously got into trouble for clubbing a fox to death on Boxing Day morning in 2019 while wearing his wife’s satin kimono, he was, of course, protecting his beloved chickens, sheltered in their Eglu run.

In fact, Eglus — and those thermal jackets — have become so wildly popular and profitable that yesterday it was announced that Omlet, the aptly-named company that makes them, has just secured £33 million from Piper, the private equity firm, in return for a significant majority stake.

Did you say £33 million for a share in a henhouse company!? This seems like a large amount, but hen-keeping can be a lucrative business.

According to recent figures, chickens are now the UK’s fourth most popular pet — ahead of hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits.

Which means that hen-keeping courses are hugely oversubscribed, sales of textbooks on how to keep hens have gone bananas and online forums are awash with discussions ranging from how to deter foxes (‘get the man of the house to wee around the garden’), to how to improve their energy (‘feed them Marmite on toast’), how often they lay (‘in a good run, every 25 hours’) and how best to fit those thermal vests (‘keep their shoulders clear or they’ll lose their balance’).

It all started for Omlet back in 2003 when James Tuthill, then a post-graduate student at the Royal College of Art, was asked by his mother to update her rather tired henhouse.‘I’d kept chickens before and I’d made a wooden house for them then,’ Tuthill explains, ‘but it wasn’t until I was looking for ideas for a final-year project and my mum suggested that I update my design for a chicken coop that I decided to take that idea further.’

Country folk in particular, who tend to keep a flock of chickens, ¿ between six and 20 usually ¿ consider the plastic coops absurdly overpriced

Country folk in particular, who tend to keep a flock of chickens, — between six and 20 usually — consider the plastic coops absurdly overpriced

When fellow students Johannes Paul, William Windham and Simon Nicholls saw his graduation project, they immediately spotted its potential — the gap in the market, the quirky design, how it chimed with the dual trends for re-homing caged hens and embracing home-grown produce — and all four joined forces to sell it. From the beginning, it was hugely successful, winning numerous design prizes and grants.

They sold more than 2,000 units in the first year. More than 70% of these went to local customers. Between 2004 and 2009 sales increased ten-fold.

And it’s not just hen houses. Omlet has since expanded its range, selling goodies from ‘memory foam’ dog beds for £39.99, to a range of luxury split-level, wood-finish hamster cages and even a £499 state-of-the-art ‘Beehaus’, for Britain’s avid apiarists.

Eglu sales increased dramatically, and so did the enthusiasm for hens.

Omlet claims that 90% of the early customers were not familiar with keeping livestock.

Suddenly, every smart urban street seemed to be waking to the sound of clucking birds, with the Eglu’s futuristic pod-like design nicely setting off expensive barbecues and garden furniture sets.

To begin with, the Eglus were delivered not just with feed, but also with at least two live chickens — by a chap in a smart sweatshirt aptly labelled ‘Chicken Delivery Man’, who walked eager young novices through the ins and outs of hen-keeping.

Today, there’s so much business the Chicken Delivery Man would probably have a breakdown.

Chickens are now the UK¿s fourth most popular pet ¿ ahead of hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits

Chickens are now the UK’s fourth most popular pet — ahead of hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits

Which is good news for organisations such as the British Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT), which rehomes 60,000 hens a year — many to Eglu owners and mostly from battery cages in egg farms, which retire them at just 18 months when they no longer lay perfectly uniform eggs.

Gaynor Davies is BHWT’s head of operations and herself owns 120 chickens.

‘It’s very addictive,’ she says. ‘Once you’ve had your first chicken, there’s no going back. They’re very, very rewarding.’

And not just, it turns out, in eggs (‘No other pet will lay you an egg for breakfast’, Gaynor laughs); owners also eulogise about their mental health benefits.

‘Have a chicken on your lap, give it a stroke,’ says Gaynor. ‘It takes your blood pressure down.’

While the nation’s enthusiasm for hens seems unstoppable — particularly during lockdown as even more embraced The Good Life ideal — not everyone is a fan of the Eglu.

Country folk in particular, who tend to keep a flock of chickens, — between six and 20 usually — consider the plastic coops absurdly overpriced and an excuse for ill-informed urbanites to keep the birds as pets which, they insist, they are not.

And while keepers crow about their birds’ brilliance, their neighbours are not always quite as keen — about the noise, the smell and the increased problems with rats and foxes that they bring.

These will all have not diminished the enthusiasm of the four Royal College of Art graduates who are suddenly rich in stupid money.

The delight of many happy chickens who once lived in horrible egg farms. Now they look forward to eating scraps from the bowl and snuggling on the couch before going to bed with their hot water bottles in the cozy little houses.