Kylie, Shania and Britney are not your average pets.They are Rhode Island Reds - chickens to you and me. They are also three of the growing number of birds being kept in gardens across suburbia.

Jenny Mill, 47, from Edinburgh, decided to buy the chickens last year. "I was sick of the eggs you buy in the supermarket," she says. "They're disgusting. And I remembered that when I used to work at a farm, they were always nice.

"There's no comparison between them. The flavour's more intense and the yolk much brighter. They're much, much tastier."

Jenny thinks the three city chicks' diet - a combination of grain and the Mill family's leftovers, which can be anything from pasta to smoked salmon - contributes to the quality of the eggs.

"They get by really well on that sort of food. There's never anything left.

"I keep them mostly for the eggs but I like having them around as well. I like to watch them running about. And my neighbours love them too. Their kids chase them in the garden.

"They're settling in really well, although they didn't lay any eggs this morning. A fox came and tried to get in the run. Thankfully it's fox-proof. But I don't know whether I'll keep them through the winter. They stop laying when there's no natural light in the mornings. We'll see."

Jenny had two other birds before her three "divas". She received Mags and Daphne for a birthday present from her husband in March last year, but had to get rid of them when she developed an infection during chemotherapy.

"My kids said it was a shame for them to go to waste, so we had them slaughtered and took them home and plucked them,"

she says. "My son made a Mexican chicken burrito out of one and the other's still in the freezer.

"It'll make the best cock-a-leekie soup in the country."