Burgeoning demand from Irish urban farmers wanting to secure their own supply of eggs has led to a three-month waiting list for laying hens, according to a poultry dealer.

Joe O’Gorman, the managing director of Whitakers Hatcheries, which produces 900,000 chickens a year for the Irish market, said: “Chickens are certainly in vogue at the moment. I think people are beginning to realise that there is something wholesome and good about keeping one.”

Chicken chic is being fuelled by a desire for organic food and concerns over battery farming. The popularity of television programmes such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage and Richard Corrigan’s eponymous City Farm, which encourage people to become self-sufficient, is also encouraging a revival in poultry keeping.

“We now sell most of our chickens to people who live in the suburbs of Dublin,” said Joe Payne, a poultry dealer from Edenderry, Co Offaly.

“Our customer base is made up of city people who want to keep five or six hens that can lay eggs. People have gone chicken mad. Kids want poultry for their birthdays. We even had a guy come to us and buy two little chicks which he gave to his girlfriend as an engagement present. I think he might have been better off with a box of chocolates and a bunch of roses.”

The move towards keeping farmyard birds in urban settings follows the trend in Britain where chickens, especially rare breeds of bantams, are popular among celebrities.

Declan Murphy, an engineer who lives in Rathfarnham, south Dublin, is a poultry enthusiast. The father of two keeps a pair of wyandotte hens in an eglu, a chicken coop which is made of colourful plastic and resembles an iPod.

“I wanted a pet that would be useful, though I also had an interest in producing my own food. The eggs that our two hens lay each morning are superb, they taste better than anything you could find in a shop,” he said.

Elaine Mackey, an office manager for a public relations firm, from Ballinteer in south Dublin, also keeps chickens. “My lot produce three to four eggs a day. The eggs are similar in colour to supermarket eggs but they taste much, much better,” she said.

“I have five hens at the moment and have just hatched some chicks. I didn’t set out to raise hens for meat in the beginning but I think that I may end up having to slaughter some of the chicks. I might attempt to eat them at a later date.”

The trend has led to the return of rare poultry breeds that vanished from Irish farm- yards years ago. Demand for miniature breeds such as Barbu d’Uccle, Dutch, Sablepoot and Yokohama bantams has soared, said Robert Devitt, a breeder who keeps 25 breeds of poultry at his home in Carlow.

“Some people want to keep pure-bred bantams because they are very pretty to look at and they have great character. I went to a sale last Sunday with 30 birds and sold them all in 30 minutes. But a lot of people are keeping bantams as educational tools. Fathers want to teach their children about food and how it is produced. The eggs in some cases are just a by-product. The recession has given people a little more time to do the things they always wanted to do. I am contemplating rearing a pig myself.”

A popular reason for keeping hens is concern over factory farming and genetically modified food. “People are fed up because they don’t know what they are eating these days,” said Corrigan, the Michelin-starred chef, who previously described battery farmed chicken as “s**t”.

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