Clarkson’s farm star Kaleb Cooper says his boss Jeremy Clarkson is the “worst farmer he’s ever seen’ as he outlines a major ‘problem’ with raising poultry on the farm
Clarkson’s Farm star Kaleb Cooper admitted there is one “problem” with his hobby of rearing chickens as he branded Jeremy Clarkson “the worst farmer I’ve ever seen”.
The 27-year-old farmer has made his name on the hit Amazon Prime show as he helps Jeremy get to grips with the realities of running a farm.
One of his favourite parts of running the Diddly Squat Farm is keeping chickens, which he says is a pretty easy job – so easy that even the “worst farmer” Jeremy can do it.
Writing in his book Kaleb’s Farmyard Tales, he said: “Anyway, the point is, chickens are generally pretty easy – even my friend Jeremy can handle chickens, and he’s the worst farmer I’ve ever seen.”
Kaleb’s hobby is not without its issues, though. The main problem is to do with his three children. He continued: “The only problem with chickens was that the kids were a bit frightened of them.”
Kaleb’s fiancée Taya has blamed the farmer for their kids’ chicken-phobia, telling him: “Maybe you shouldn’t have told them the chickens were dinosaur.
When Kaleb insisted that Oscar, Willa and even little Ashton all love TV shows about dinosaurs, Taya pointed out: “They watch Terry’s Dino Club – happy fluffy dinosaurs with smiley faces and big eyelashes solving puzzles together.”
Kaleb’s description of the chickens as “Little dinosaurs with feathers” appeared to have given them the wrong impression.
That problem was eventually overcome though, Kaleb says, and his little ones are now enthusiastically helping with his chickens: “The kids gradually got used to the chickens and they were a big help to me and Taya – even little Willa with her tiny basket, carrying half a dozen eggs so carefully across the yard, a look of intense concentration on her face.
“Oscar was already a champion egg collector,” Kaleb said: “He’s bigger and a lot more confident than Willa. Or at least, he was until Jeff the Mad Rooster took a dislike to him.
“Jeff is quite big. Like most types of animals, the male chicken is bigger and more annoying than the female. As roosters don’t lay eggs, they’re not a lot of use except for waking everyone up at four in the morning.”
Kaleb adds: “Generally, you only need one rooster, for breeding. So I think Jeff was a bit bored, and he decided to have some fun by terrorising poor Oscar.
“Oscar is bigger than Jeff, but not by much.”
Kaleb’s less keen for the kids to get attached to his turkeys, though, because they’re “not very permanent” and tend to “leave” in the run-up to Christmas.
In his new book, Kaleb tells how he didn’t come from a farming family, and his first venture into keeping livestock was at the age of 13, when he started rearing hens and selling their eggs.
He was forced to put his money-spinning hobby aside for a while, though, after the head teacher at his school complained to Kaleb’s mum that chicken-farming was using up time he really should have been spending on his school work.
