From finding ex-battery hens to their special requirements during those first few weeks, here is everything you need to know.
In January 2012 the Barren Cage Ban came into force, finally seeing the end of the tiny, cramped cages where each hen had less room than an A4 size piece of paper. Whilst an important step forward in hen welfare, it has led to a common misconception that there are …
So, maybe you are tempted by tales of chicken keeping and images of happy chickens clucking around the garden and you are toying with the idea of having a few hens of your own? Maybe you’d like to find out where you can find some Ex-Battery Hens to rehome?
For those of us that raise and nurture our own hens, the world of intensive chicken farming is a million miles away. But for the egg-buying public, many are blissfully unaware of the conditions the eggs they purchase were produced in. Skilful marketing and lack of proper labelling hide the …
Ask anyone who already re-homes ex-battery hens or ‘ex-batts’ about their ‘girls’ and you will receive an enthusiastic, and probably very long, animated response extolling the virtues of their ladies. Whether you are new to keeping chickens or already have a flock of the more ‘normal’ birds, offering a home …
Considering what they have been through, ex-battery hens don’t usually have too many health problems. Battery hens are vaccinated against most of the serious poultry diseases that they could get and they don’t carry many worms since they cannot pick up the worm eggs in dirty litter having lived on …
So what has life been like for the hens you re-home? Well, we have all heard about the dreaded battery cage that typically houses 4 hens, giving them about the space of an A4 sheet of paper but just like those rather strange breeds of cat or dog you see …
Re-homing a few ex battery hens is an incredibly rewarding experience. Battery hens have never been able to express some of their most natural behaviours; like foraging, scratching the ground or nesting to lay their eggs and seeing them able to do this for the first time is certainly very …
If you are new to chickens or have simply never rehomed battery hens before then these Frequently Asked Questions about rehoming ex-batts are for you! From the practicalities of the size coop and run you need, what to buy before you get them and what to feed them to general …
The British Hen Welfare Trust has rescued and re-homed over 120’000 ex-battery hens (as of January 2009), that is hens that have reached the end of their useful life in battery farming. This article describes a typical day of a battery hen rescue co-ordinator and is reproduced with kind permission …
