Chickens

[Jessica13]

Hey,

Here's some pics of the ex battery hens we picked up from a rescue in London yesterday As you can see, some are in quite bad condition.. Theres a couple who are not too bad though! These were due to be killed because they were 'too old'

A nice looking one with a not so nice looking one..

This is Dilys! She's probably the worst one but she is SO sweet!! She'll eat from our hands and she runs up to us when she sees us! )

And look at the presents they left for us this morning.. Two eggs!!

 

[Lynz781]

Wow that is just what I like to see!!!!! Glad those hens got a good home. So sad what they have to go through

 

[Jessica13]

Yeah, its not a nice life for them And these were the lucky ones, I would imagine that for each one we rescued, thousands of others were killed just because they were too old

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

They are actually in VERY good shape for battery chickens, i worked in a battery chicken farm once for a couple of days and it was hell on earth, never seen so much misery, desease and cruelty in my life; i used to have chickens for about 12years so i know a fair amount about them.

They put chicks into the mincer/food processer alive for cat and dog food, many chickens wern't even killed properly and were still alive when they started to be prepared for food, many chickens didn't even know how to walk they had been in a cage for their entire lives that when they died you had to cut their legs off just to get them out of the cage because their feet had grown around the cage bars.
A chicken naturally lays 2 eggs a day, battery chickens are forced to pump out 36 on average day(thats like us giving birth once a week), chickens naturally take a year on average to mature, battery chickens are forced to mature in 6months via been feed hormones and chemicals- they even somtimes get their beaks cut off so they can be force fed to produce more eggs. Don't even let me go on to barn range chickens if you thought you were buying healthier chickens than battery range ones.

I could go on, but you did a very good thing saving those chickens .
What are you feeding them on currently? If the weather gets bad you may have to take the ones with the least feathers indoors so they don't get a cold(yes chickens get colds like we do ). Chickens will scratch around in the earth to look for food naturally but you may have to teach your chickens how to do this as they are battery ones by imitating pecking around for food and scratching the ground yourself as they are intelligent creatures that will learn from you .

 

[Mr Miagi]

I have ex battery hens too!

We buy them when our old one pass away from old age. So its a cycle. Giving them a good end is great, and they will reward you for it too!

Sadly, we bought 20, but 10 died of shock during transit they were that battered and weak, so be careful during transportation ok! You should be fine otherwise!

Dilys is growing back her chest feathers, so she shouldnt be 4 more months before she rules the roost with her fine looking feathers lol! The new feathers you can see are the dark protrusions coming from the skin, you will se what i mean!

Id watch that dog if i were you. I dont know what he is like, but mine has killed 3 chickens and a duck all cause they escaped... So sad...

I sell my eggs for $3.00 a dozen and we cant supply enough.

 

[Angel Lady]

Oh my God that is so sad. I wont eat chicken and now that I have read that I am glad I dont.. Poor things...

 

[black angel]

those chickens are really lucky, and i hope they enjoy the rest of their natural lives with you.
did anyone see dispatches on ch4 the other night about farm reared chicken? i was absolutely appalled at the way they were treated. I wont be buying any more supermarket chickens again. if i want chicken i will get it from a butcher where i know its been well treated before i get it.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Don't eat barn range as much as battery range, barn range from what i have experienced is actually worse than battery range- when chickens are kept in numbers more than what they'd ever experience in the wild they turn cannibal, they also live in their own muck and desease runs rife in barn range chickens- i'd say about a 3rd of them are deseased that end up on the supermarket shelf. Think of 25,000 chickens in a barn with even less space to move than the battery chickens, except there are dead rotting bodys and eggs everywhere, extremely nauseating smell and space. At least in when the chickens are in cages the bodys are removed on a regular basis when they die and the chickens can't eat each other out of stress.
I don't eat chicken and chicken eggs at all, i don't eat mcdonalds and i wouldn't advise you eat their egg or chicken based meals as they are all barn and battery range- this also goes for all the other big chain fast food stores. I used to work at a scotch egg factory and they used battery eggs in their scotch eggs- one of the jobs i once had there was removing all the mutated and deseased eggs and we are talking fresh eggs here; somtimes we would get eggs with bits of wood in them that the chicken had eaten and tried to digest unsuccessfully out of hunger, somtimes we would get grey colored eggs and alot of the time we would get mutant eggs like eggs that had no yolk or had 3 yolks or the egg shell was all lumpy etc. Even if i didn't care about battery chickens, i wouldn't eat the eggs on the basis of how unhealthy many of them were, can't be good for your considering half the hormones and chemials these chickens get fed don't even get digested properly .
I realy respect anyone who's saves battery chickens.

 

[Jessica13]

Wow, lots of big replies

We're feeding these layers pellets, with a bit of corn, oyster shells (i think??) and pretty much any leftover food! They seem to be liking their new diet and are eating everything we're offering them. Oooh, and we've had 6 eggs from them so far!

They're all getting quite tame now, they run up to us when they see us and we can pick them up and stuff! They even let us trim their nails earlier

mr_miagi - The dog in the background is Chloe! She's not too well so wouldn't be able to run after the chickens, and she's very well behaved so wouldn't even attempt to go after them. I have parrots as well and she's very good with those. Her two puppies we're being a bit more careful with though, as they will kill the chickens!

They're all very good at digging for food already They've been at the rescue for two weeks so have probably learnt from the other, healthier, chickens there, which is probably why they're doing so well

 

[-*-MicHAeL-*-]

i always eat free range eggs LOL
i used to have chickens up unitl about 3 years ago they are so coool and have great personalities

BTW Jessica you seem to have every pet there is LOL

 

[Jessica13]

I do have a lot of pets! I love animals, im planning to work as a behaviourist, or something like that in the future so it seems right to fill my house with pets I no longer have my snakes and lizards, but i plan to buy a snake again soon

 

[Angry_Platy]

I want to have a yard big enough one day to have LOTS and LOTS of chickens.

Rescue chickens of course

I love chickens

 

[Angel Lady]

Wow 3.00 a dozen. That is high for a dozen of eggs. The sell for less than a dollar here..

 

[Opcn]

are intelligent creatures that will learn from you .

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I'm sure you didnt get a good look at them in the battery but chickens are not intelligent animals at all, and if you go about thinking that you will let them hurt themselves. I've seen chickens hurt there beaks by pecking at nails because they stuck out, I've seen them fly over 2 foot fences then spend 15 minutes running back and forth franticall trying to get back.

But battery chickens arent kiled just because they are too old, they are killed because at a certain point they become more valuable as food than as layers, its just like eating letuce, you plant a seed then you can pull off leaves individually for a while but sooner or later it becomes more advantageous to pull the whil;e head and eat it and plant a new one. Just the way it is on farms (and batteries, wich are more chicken concentration camps than farms, although i doubt the figure for eggs layed that tokis put fourth)

And on a side note, you should consider getting a pair of geese, sure they are poop machines but they will clear all the brodleaf plants from your lawn and turn that into po that will attract flies wich your chickens will eat with great enthusiasm (most people dont realise it but in the wild chickens ansestors ate more bugs than grain.)