Spotlight: Rescue a Battery Hen!
May 31, 2010 at 2:13 am 6 comments
My mum is talking about getting chickens. It will be a while before she gets them, but she is very enthusiastic. Her local council has changed the law so her yard is now considered big enough, which she finds ironic. She had chooks in suburbia as a kid, then they were regulated out (only poor people and farmers had chooks – suddenly everyone was rich enough to buy their own eggs, so it became illegal to keep them). She and I had an interesting (if abbreviated due to time constraints) discussion about how everything comes full circle and we’re going back to the environmentally-friendly way things were done in the past.
Mum also saw an eco-coop at a university environmental day which caught her fancy. It was nice and big and had a trough on top where you could grow veges (like lettuce). Clearly the garden part would be conveniently handy to the chook manure!
In addition to those little incentives, Mum just plain likes chickens. Let’s just say that this weekend wasn’t the first time she and I have talked about her childhood chook, Penny. (Sadly, a snake got Penny when Mum was about 5 or 6.) Cows might make her nervous (‘They have such big faces!’), but she gets this really sweet smile on her face when she talks about chickens.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I suggested Mum rescue battery hens and she seemed keen on the idea. Mum is always keen to rescue animals in distress (I think she would be vegan if she allowed herself to really think about it, but let’s not get into that debate.)
Hens, one month after adoption. (Photo from The Battery Hen Adoption Project.)
I read about battery hen rescue on the Queensland Vegsoc forum (I feel like I’m reading everything there lately!). I’m going to send her links, but here are three threads about battery hen adoption, some with links to photos, for you all to read too.
- Jan 2010 hen adoptions (there’s a very moving poem on p4)
- March 2010 hen adoptions
- May 2010 hen adoptions.
The organisation that rehomes the battery hens is Brisbane-based. It’s called The Battery Hen Adoption Project. They have some really good information on their site about taking care of the chooks when they first come home. Of course everything is new to the poor bald chickens; they don’t even know how to sleep sitting down, or have a concept for getting up and walking to the water/food dishes to eat and drink.
There’s also the saddest video on the site:
I really want to rescue some hens now! I can’t wait til we’re not renting anymore. (I have visions of a strawbale type of construction to be a lovely, fox-free coop for them to sleep in at night.) I am also pleased with the idea of supplying Yankee Elv and Mr Teeny-bop with some truly free-range eggs, since they both still eat them.
In the meantime, I guess I will have to make do with visiting Mum’s chickens, when she gets them. I wonder, if she gets them in winter, if they will need jumpers like these…
If you want to keep chickens in Brisbane, get all the info on ourbrisbane.
Entry filed under: Spotlight. Tags: animals, chickens, climate change, eggs, homesteading, land use, local, low impact, pets, urban farming, veg*nism.
1.
wingclipped | May 31, 2010 at 5:02 am
Poor Penny! In the K the biggest problem is foxes, and we just build sturdy fox-proof enclosures. But how do you keep snakes out?
2.
Aussie Elv | May 31, 2010 at 9:54 am
I know! I don’t think Penny was in a secure coop though; it was years ago and I think people were less stringent on coops back then.
We have foxes here too, so the coops have to be secure so they can’t dig in, but for snakes, you should just use a small chicken wire. If the snake is small enough to get through the wire, then it is small enough for the chickens to chase and eat. The bigger ones are the problem, and since they can’t get through, the chickens should be fine.
The best way to avoid attracting snakes, apparently, is to keep the area rodent-free as much as possible. It’s really the rodents that attract the snakes more than the chickens. But we have snakes everywhere in Queensland, so it’s no big deal. They mostly hide – but those rats and mice would lure them out, so I will remind Mum to keep her food dishes very secure!
(Don’t I sound like an expert, for one who has never kept chooks herself! lol)
3.
wingclipped | May 31, 2010 at 5:03 am
oops UK I mean!
4.
Jlow | June 2, 2010 at 10:43 am
how’s your mum’s dog going to cope with having a chook around the place? wouldn’t he go mental trying to eat them? lol.
5.
Aussie Elv | June 4, 2010 at 10:02 am
Mum reckons she will put them in the coop when he has free range of the yard, then he goes in the house when they come out of the coop. It will be a sharing situation lol.
Apparently he copes with her current bird well enough – he likes to chase other birds (not that he catches them), but he seems to accept that Mum’s bird is part of the family and not meant to be chased. She hopes he will eventually see the chooks the same way.
6.
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