I picked up the above book today at St Neots library.  It is a memoir by Alice Walker and describes growing up with chickens in the yard and how she they used to sit in her lap and coo.  I have never had such a close relationship with a chicken but the new bantam birds are used to being handled by the children of the previous owner and so……. when I went to check on them at lunch time I bent down to stroke them.  Lo and behold they stayed still to be petted and I can see that we will be able to continue to treat them as pets as well as egg producers.  In addition one of the birds felt so at home that she had laid a beautiful bantam sized egg.  Wow!