topic Re: re homing battery hens in Community Spirit

re homing battery hens

amalan11 — Tue, 07 May 2013 10:11:07 GMT

I get a regular email from a rescue centre called EDGARS MISSION,it seems a great place , they save farm animals.They are urgently looking for homes for battery hens that are going to be slaughtered next week .They are at Willowmavin in Victoria if anyone can help.Google Edgars Mission and go to their blog to see the details .I cannot help as im in NSW but im hoping some one here may like some hens :-x

Re: re homing battery hens

azureline** — Tue, 07 May 2013 10:40:39 GMT

I can't help, just bumping for the chicks.

Re: re homing battery hens

happyroo_bunji — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:08:16 GMT

I can't help either, my dog likes to "play" with chooks until they are dead.

Willowmavin is near Kilmore, so not too far from Melbourne

Re: re homing battery hens

crystal**flake — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:10:52 GMT

Aren't they normally eaten.

Re: re homing battery hens

azureline** — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:17:38 GMT

battery hens are for eggs, meat chickens are for eating.

Re: re homing battery hens

punch*drunk — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:22:49 GMT

I opened the page and then closed it again when I got to the adoption bit where they want to know how much experience you've had with adopted chooks etc. It all just seemed to hard. I'd like to rescue some when we're ready to get them, but I'm not prepared to go through an adoption process and wait for approval, they're chooks, not kids.

Re: re homing battery hens

crystal**flake — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:24:14 GMT

battery hens are for eggs, meat chickens are for eating.

My grand mother had chickens that layed eggs and she would eat them too.

Re: re homing battery hens

monstersinthedungeon — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:50:43 GMT

Amalan, I also get the emails from Edgar's Mission. We need more hens, but sadly are up in Qld, so can't help.

We rescued six ex battery chooks about a year ago from a lady in Brisbane. It is very rewarding to see the poor chooks, who arrive almost bald and very timid, evolve into proper chooks.

Just watching them learn to scratch around for bugs, take a dust bath, everything that normal chooks are used to, but they have never before experienced in their life time, is a pleasure.

Re: re homing battery hens

cherry*135 — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:58:11 GMT

My grand mother had chickens that layed eggs and she would eat them too.

Grandma's hens would have been well feed and healthy. Our laying chooks ended up in the pot sometimes too.

Battery hens once the chicken farmer has no use for them, are scrawny and not healthy looking. They would not make good eating. I had some friends who took some of these hens home, they looked awful to start with.

Re: re homing battery hens

crystal**flake — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:13:19 GMT

They need to go to god then.

Re: re homing battery hens

monstersinthedungeon — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:20:17 GMT

No they don't Crystal, these hens recover really well and enjoy their well-earned retirement hugely.

Within just a couple of months they are almost indistinguishable from "normal" chooks, and learn very quickly to do "chookie" things that have been denied to them; snoozing in the sunshine, scratching around in the grass for bugs, dust bathing. They are also very friendly; incredible when you think of the horror people have put them through.

They also still reward you with lovely fresh eggs.

Re: re homing battery hens

cherry*135 — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:23:50 GMT

They need to go to god then.

No, they need love and attention, freedom to scratch around and sunshine and good food.

Re: re homing battery hens

buzzlightyearsgirlfriend — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:34:14 GMT

They also still reward you with lovely fresh eggs.

That's what I was wondering about.

So why are they retired?

Aren't there free range places in the near vicinity that can re-home them and give them a better life and use the eggs they will eventually lay?

Re: re homing battery hens

crystal**flake — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:36:24 GMT

No, they need love and attention, freedom to scratch around and sunshine and good food.

Its a chicken............how long do they live for anyways, off to google.

Re: re homing battery hens

crystal**flake — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:37:47 GMT

Oh a long time.

Re: re homing battery hens

monstersinthedungeon — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:42:27 GMT

Buzz, the egg production of the "retired" hens is not as intense as the first 18months of their lives (the length of time that they are kept for and then normally slaughtered in a battery operation).

You will still get eggs, but instead of an egg a day, maybe only 3-4 per week, not enough for a commerical operation, and of course that amount lessens further as the chooks age.

Unfortunately because of the incredibly stressful conditions they live under for the first 18 months of their lives, ex-battery girls don't live very long lives. They usually only last a year or two after they come into retirement.

Out of the six girls we adopted a year or so ago, we have only one left. As a comparison, the purebred free-range hens we purchased 18 months ago (who were already a year old), we still have every one of them. The rescue girls are kept in exactly the same conditions, feed the same food, etc, just their poor little bodies have been through such trauma (and laid so many eggs, whilst the purebreeds don't) that their bodies just don't last very long 😞

At least they died after experiencing a little bit of freedom and pleasure in their short lives.

Re: re homing battery hens

monstersinthedungeon — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:44:10 GMT

Crystal, it's not "just a chicken" - it's a living, breathing, feeling creature.

You used to keep rats, people say "Oh yuck, a rat", but you know that they had feelings and characters, could feel happiness, fear and pain, even though they were "just" rats. Chickens are the same.

Re: re homing battery hens

jessiezclydesdales — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:46:20 GMT

I have owned battery hens several times in the past, and would do so happily again.

all they need is TLC, and it doesn't take much to give them that before they are happily being normal chooks again.

Re: re homing battery hens

crystal**flake — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:48:56 GMT

Chickens are dinner.

Re: re homing battery hens

cherry*135 — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:50:21 GMT

Chook owners love their chooks.

Rats are pests.]:)