'I want a million chickens when I grow up'

Nugget - the biggest of Archie's hens - is his favourite

Ask any seven-year-old boy what they want to be when they grow up and you are likely to get one of a few answers: a firefighter, an actor, an astronaut.

For Archie, the answer is simple. He wants to be a farmer.

But not just any farmer. This schoolboy wants to be a household name with one million chickens roaming his land.

So strong is his passion for poultry that Archie's family has rented a field where, with the support of his parents and older siblings, he is looking after about 50 of the feathered birds.

Archie has arrived at his plot in Great Braxted, Essex, bright and early before he makes his way to school, donning a beaming smile and a tweed jacket.

It is not long before he makes a beeline for his favourite chicken – Nugget.

She is the biggest hen in the coop – Archie reckons she might even be the biggest in the universe.

"She never runs away… she just wants to snuggle," he says.

Many of the Birds have names – like Pecky Blinder, Dolly Parthen and Chubby – who is in fact the smallest bird in the flock.

Archie visits his chickens every day

Archie says his passion for farming started because his bedroom window overlooks fields.

And when he learned about the condition some commercial chickens are kept in, he wanted to do something to save them.

What started off as five chickens in the garden of the family's home in nearby Cressing quickly snowballed, and Archie's chickens moved to their new home in October, as first reported by the Braintree and Witham Times.

With the help of a nearby deli, he is selling his hens' eggs and is saving his hard earned pennies to one day have his own farm, complete with pigs, geese, ducks and alpacas.

He even wants to build a "chicken fortress".

Asked again how many chickens he would like to have, he says: "Two trillion."

Archie sells his eggs and is saving towards buying his own farm

Unlike most young farmers, Archie does not come from a farming background. His mum Jodie is a social media manager and his dad Adrian is a groundsman.

As her son collects the eggs that have been laid overnight, Jodie chuckles that she would never have believed she would be standing here as a "farming mum".

"Archie had a dream and we thought it might fizzle out… most little boys like farming but this has grown from having five chickens in the garden to having land, over 50 chickens, and he has his own community built around him that want to support him."

Having fed the chickens and collected their eggs, it is time for Archie to change into his school uniform, ready to do it all again tomorrow.