See Liverpool’s Joe Allen on the front cover of Chicken & Egg magazine’s spring edition.

Well known for his love of poultry, in the twelfth issue of the hen welfare publication the Welsh midfielder “talks chickens” in the Celebrity sCoop section.

Joe Allen told Chicken & Egg magazine:

We didn’t have any hens growing up but wanted to help chickens after they finished their commercial lives.

We began with 4 hens but our flock has steadily grown to 14 hens and 2 cockerels.

It’s fair to say we have a pretty random variety of names.

The cockerels are named Bruce and Rodney, and the hens are Meg, Leg, Silkie Steve, Kate, Silkie Steve junior, Giblets, Snowy, Nugget, Kiev, Dora, Holly, Shimmer, Shine and Chickaletta.

The player even received a cockerel from his wife for his 24th birthday a couple of years ago:

And this was his present pic.twitter.com/OqF1Uq6pZt

— lacey-jo allen (@laceyjoallen) March 16, 2014

The periodical is produced by the British Hen Welfare Trust:

The British Hen Welfare Trust is, national charity that re-homes commercial laying hens, educates the public about how they can make a difference to hen welfare, and encourages support for the British egg industry.

Its ultimate aim is to see consumers and food manufacturers buying only UK produced free-range eggs, resulting in a strong British egg industry where all commercial laying hens enjoy a good quality life.