Welcome to the first post of our journal focussing on the (new) lives of our ex-battery hens. Our goal in bringing these stories to you is to draw attention to the life of battery hens the world-over, and the laws that fail to protect them.
CastleGate Animal Law Clinic adopted ten of these hens who otherwise would have been slaughtered, having served their commercial purpose. This is their story.
Day 1
After several weeks of poring over informative emails from Julie of Who Gives a Cluck and renovating our chook house and pen to suit the special requirements of ex-battery hens, finally adoption day came around. We headed north of Gympie in two vehicles, with boxes and pet carriers, to Happily Heifer After who were working in conjunction with Who Gives a Cluck to make sure the busy adoption day went smoothly.
On arriving at our allotted time, we had no wait at all, and the lovely Michelle and her volunteers loaded ten hens into our vehicles and sent us on our way with last minute advice and worming tablets to give to our hens in two week’s time.
Our existing chook house and run had been extended into what ended up being a ‘T’ shape, with a house at each of two ends of the ‘T’, and the remainder being expansive runs. We have no immediate plans to have our girls be free-range; each hen has spent her entire 18-month life in a small wire cage with five other hens and has no experience with freedom and certainly limited physical agility, and so it’s in their best interests to remain fully protected for the time being. Once they are stronger and we can be sure they are safe from predators, they will be free-range.
The girls are either Isa Browns or Lohman Browns. Most large-scale commercial egg farms will have these hen breeds, as their DNA was manipulated in the early 1970’s to have them lay way too many eggs for their bodies. It is because of this — the exhaustion and wear and tear inflicted on these hens — that the lifespan of battery hens is shorter than a specialty breed hen.
We noticed some of our girls appeared in good condition — large, great feather coverage, quite mobile. Others were small, scrawny and with large bare patches of skin. All of them initially walked around the runs as if they were not quite sure what to do with their legs; then one of the stronger ones flapped her wings and jumped (with joy?), and it seemed to set off the others, with similar attempts made — and a few tumbles occurring as balance failed.
It wasn’t our intention in adopting ex-battery hens to boost our egg supply, and in fact we intend to feed eggs back to the hens, thereby returning lost nutrition to them, however it’s interesting to note that in the short space of time between adoption in Glenwood and settling in their new home, three eggs had been produced. We are anticipating that the egg production will be affected by the stress of complete change of environment, so we are monitoring this sign.
However, by the end of what was a cool and very blustery day, all ten hens appeared to be happily exploring their houses and runs. We’d been careful to remove all perches, as not only have ex-battery hens never stood on a perch in their lives, but there is a real risk of them falling from one because of the weakness of their legs and the fact that their feet/claws are only accustomed to standing on wire. In time we will introduce low perches and one day we hope they will be confidently perching just like ‘regular’ hens.
We noticed they all hung around the water feeder and drank heartily, and had drunk all it held by the end of the day. Perhaps it was the fact the water was vitamin- and calcium-enriched or maybe it was the electrolytes intended to soothe stresses; perhaps it may have been that they couldn’t believe their luck after likely only having water from a feeder which only gave water a drop at a time. Regardless of the reason, it was satisfying to observe.
The hens survived the night safely, despite Ghost the horse paying them a visit to investigate (no damage or harm was done but perhaps it was scary to see this big white beast looking in!), and this morning they dust-bathed and frolicked in the sunshine after a good feed (and more water).
Stay tuned for future updates on the lives of the feathered ladies.