New additions: Meet the rescue chickens
I come from a family of animal lovers and have had the chance to be around all sorts of animals from dogs and cats to chinchillas, snakes, ferrets, rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits and many more! Back when I was a teenager my family decided that we would try and raise some chickens from eggs and it was after doing this that I decided I could no longer eat meat and I became a vegetarian. I made this choice because I had seen the chickens grow up from tiny fluffy chicks into beautiful, sweet little souls who deserve more than being crammed in cages to live a life of misery before finally being sent off to die.
Eventually, all our chooks passed on and we went on with our lives with fond memories of the feathering friends we had loved… until recently! Through some friends, my mother and I found out about Fresh Start for Hens, a not for profit organisation, run entirely by volunteers who are dedicated to rehoming hens from the commercial egg production sector. Their aim is to ensure as many people as possible are aware of the plight of the commercial hen, and demonstrate that there are alternatives to early slaughter. Their goal is to educate the public about the ethical benefits of buying free-range eggs, whilst supporting the work of British farmers.
Fresh Start for Hens work closely with British farmers and purchase the hens from the caged, barn and free range systems, just before their slaughter date. Commercially all laying hens are slaughtered at the age of 72 weeks, when their production drops slightly. Their carcasses are worth very little and are usually sold for dog food, baby food or cheap, processed pies etc.
Sadly as you can see from the photos below, hens rescued from commercial egg-laying farms are usually in a pretty poor state – despite farmers meeting welfare standards you can see the hens are crammed in behind bars without sunlight and with minimal ‘enrichment’ in their cages – this leads to boredom and pecking behaviour which results in the chickens having their feathers pulled out by their companions. The photo below shows a particularly bullied chicken who is practically naked. You can surely empathise with the trauma she has gone through. Luckily she ended up with caring people who nursed her back to health and after some TLC she regrew her feathers.
Having been inspired by our friends, my mum and I decided to take on 4 ex-commercial chickens to give them a lovely home for them to live out their remaining days in. My mum went all out purchasing a fabulous Omlet Eglu chicken house with a run which we extended with some fencing to give the chooks plenty of space to roam around in and express natural behaviour such as stretching (there’s not really enough space for them to do this when in a cage), scratching and foraging on the ground as well as enjoying dust baths!
As you can see our chooks arrived in varing states of naked-ness, but generally they didn’t seem too bad health-wise. It has taken them a while to get used to their new routine – automatic door opens at sun rise letting them out into their small run where they have food, water and other things to play with or peck at! Then after we have walked our dogs we come and top up their food/water etc, let them out into the larger run and check for eggs. I am now vegan and don’t eat any animal products so they go to my parents.
It is important to remember that when you rehome ex-commercial hens you are not doing it for the eggs – you are doing it for the chickens – but they will still produce eggs from time to time which is an added bonus. When it starts getting dark the chooks take themselves to bed and the automatic door closes when the sun goes down. We check to make sure they are all inside and safe away from potential predators like neighbourhood cats and foxes.
We have actually gone the extra mile and have a Ring security camera positioned in the garden facing the chickens so we can keep an eye on them and be alerted if any creatures come to a visit!
The chickens named Ginger, Bunty, Babs and Mack (names from the movie Chicken run!) have definitely perked up since being rescued from their horrible cages and now can enjoy a long and happy life in the lap of luxury in my parents’ garden! Not only are they happy, but we are happy – it is lovely to just sit outside in the good weather and watch them do their chickeny things.
If you think you might be able to give some ex-commercial egg-laying chickens a home then do take a look at the Fresh Start for Hen’s website where you can find a lot of great information.
