Ex-battery hens coming home to roost a month early

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

I’ve received word that our ex-battery hens are going to be ready for collection this coming Saturday, four weeks ahead of schedule. We will likely not only have our own four to look after for a while, but another four set aside for have friends who are dealing with a family crisis right now and haven’t got the time to undertake their planned shed conversion for the birds, so they can’t pick up their four on this occasion. They’re on course to pick them up from another batch scheduled for release to the Battery Hen Welfare Trust at the end of March.

We don’t mind looking after eight at all, but both My beloved and I are very concerned for our friends, and for their family member who is in intensive care. I can’t go into details for reasons that should be obvious. We have a great deal of respect and love for our friends, and what’s important is they know they have rock-solid support available whenever they need to call upon it. I only wish we could do more.

I’m glad we bought our chicken coop back in January. It’s all set up in the garden, waiting for occupants. But the excitement I expected to feel is severely tempered by the distressing news that came this morning, about what our friends are having to deal with. I am, however, glad to think there are chickens living in a dark, horrible space the size of a small box right now that have no idea they are, in just a few days’ time, going to be pulled from Hell to go on to discover fresh air, grass and blue sky.

Our garden, however, is nowhere near ready to allow the chickens to free-range. They will have to stay inside their run for a few weeks, no bad thing as even that is going to be a shock, being far more space than they have been used to all their lives. But we have an old and nasty fence to pull down and a chicken wire fence to erect. Hopefully we can make some progress this weekend. I’ve no idea how long it’s going to take to do the job, but I suspect putting up the new fence will be somewhat easier than ripping out the old one.

Five days after the ladies arrive it’s my birthday. And because I know some of you will ask, I have no idea what names are going to be picked for the chickens. It might be best to wait until they’re settled in and can start expressing individual personalities (and believe me, chickens do have personalities when given the opportunity to live natural lives).

categories: animals