We are...
The Backyard Bug Appreciation Society.
" We are Greta (Grey - Barred Rock hen 18 weeks old) and Ingrid (Black - Black Rock hen 20 weeks old).
We arrived in this strange new green world on Tuesday, after having spent all our young lives indoors. According to our new owners this green springy stuff is called grass, it's pretty tasty and has all kinds of bugs in it too! We'd never seen real bugs either until this week and had only heard rumours of their deliciousness, but wow - slugs are beyond anything, and those crunchy snails, well, our flock mama, Oli, says that even humans eat those in France but there they cook them first....we find this incomprehensible, I mean, the slime is the best bit!
Me, that's Ingrid up there....I'm already laying a fine brown egg every morning. Greta says she thinks she feels nearly ready to start laying too, and her comb is getting a little bit redder every day. Mine is, as you can see, already a lovely rosy red.
So far there are only two of us, but flock mama says that soon we will be joined by some very special friends called 'ex-battery hens'. Battery farms are evil places that put hens like us in teeny, filthy cramped cages with no room to move around or stretch and then after only 50 weeks those poor exhausted hens are destroyed to make pet food and commercial fertilizer. Flock mama gets very upset about this and is determined to help a local battery hen rescue charity by buying and re-homing some of the 'discarded' hens here with us to save them from being killed and minced up for catfood. Luckily flock mama's parents live in lovely countryside with a big garden and lots of grass, so we will all be able to run around together in freedom and safety, with lots of food and a big warm hen-house filled with straw to nest in at night. The battery hens will be in very bad condition when they arrive due to how they have had to live...sore legs, bald patches, cuts and bruises and we will have to be very kind to them while they get healthy, and teach them how to perch, how to scratch the grass for bugs, and how to flap their wings properly. I do hope they realize though, that as the head-laying hen and chief slug-finder that I'm in charge of this flock! "
So now you've met my new 'Girls'. I have been at home this past week and while there, my family decided to start keeping hens again. When I was a kid we always had hens, 10 at one point...producing an average of 70 eggs per week! I sold the delicious organic free-range eggs at a local farm shop for pocket-money. Anyway, since I've been at university my parents stopped keeping chooks, and as I'm able to spend some time at home now....and as mum is sick of the mass-produced so-called free range eggs, they decided that it's time to re-stock.
I choose the two ladies above from a local hen breeder. They arrived pretty nervous, but within 3 days were being hand fed, cuddled, petted and very happy to come when called.
Their favourite place in the whole garden is the patch of dry leaves and earth behind the greenhouse, and they have spent hours scratching happily finding all sorts of hen culinary delights. Ingrid's eggs are quite literally the best eggs I've had since...well, since the last time we kept hens!
Greta is a couple of weeks too young to lay, but my July she should be up and going. Ingrid is actually Scottish by birth...she was hatched at a specialist breeder's in Muirhouse and travelled to Northern Ireland by Ferry along with 50 of her sisters and cousins when she was a few days old. This is because Black Rocks are a specialist breed and there are only 2 liscensed breeders in the UK, one of which is in Scotland. Several of these chicks were then raised to maturity by John at 'Hens 'n' Huts' where I bought her and her good friend and coop-mate Greta. They go everywhere together, Ingrid is quite determined and outgoing, has to be first at everything...first out the door in the morning...first at the feeder...first to get a cuddle...first to head up the garden etc, and Greta who is a little more nervous, follows happily along behind and never out of chirping distance. Greta talks incessently and Ingrid isn't so chatty. It's funny...even hens have personalities!
To find out more about Battery Hen Rescue charities visit:
http://www.littlehenrescue.co.uk - England
http://www.nuthousehenrescue.co.uk - N.Ireland
http://www.animalplace.org - USA
Any of you who think about keeping a couple of chooks, do please consider ex-battery hens. They are very friendly and adapt quickly and joyfully to their new loving homes. Generally they begin laying for their new owners within a month or so, basically as soon as their legs get stronger and their feathers grow back. A friend of our family has a flock of 16 ex-battery birds, all tame, friendly and laying every day. The hybrid used in battery farming live about 3 years, and you will get them at about 1 year old....so that gives you 2 more years of egg production.
I kept hybrids for a few years, and they are lovely birds. The reason farms cull them at 50 weeks is because the birds are so unhealthy and exhausted that the production drops from about 350 eggs per year to around 280 at which point they are deemed 'inefficient'.
It is totally disgusting the way in which some of our food is produced.
All our chooks are part of the family and get to live in peaceful retirement after they stop laying, and when nature eventually takes its course they are buried in our pet graveyard.
So if you oppose the mistreatment of beautiful chickens, please be mindful of where you buy your eggs...never buy 'caged hen eggs' of 'barn eggs' at your supermarket...I know they are cheaper, but they support a horrible industry which in the case of the USA in particular, is not subject to any animal welfare or animal cruelty legislation. Please always buy free range or from local farmer's markets if you possibly can.
Here in the UK we have the wonderful 'Happy Egg Company' who were started up specifically to produce eggs from healthy, happy, free ranging, long-lived, well cared for hens. http://www.thehappyegg.co.uk
These are my supermarket eggs of choice when I can't get to the farmer's market.
" We are Greta (Grey - Barred Rock hen 18 weeks old) and Ingrid (Black - Black Rock hen 20 weeks old).
We arrived in this strange new green world on Tuesday, after having spent all our young lives indoors. According to our new owners this green springy stuff is called grass, it's pretty tasty and has all kinds of bugs in it too! We'd never seen real bugs either until this week and had only heard rumours of their deliciousness, but wow - slugs are beyond anything, and those crunchy snails, well, our flock mama, Oli, says that even humans eat those in France but there they cook them first....we find this incomprehensible, I mean, the slime is the best bit!
Me, that's Ingrid up there....I'm already laying a fine brown egg every morning. Greta says she thinks she feels nearly ready to start laying too, and her comb is getting a little bit redder every day. Mine is, as you can see, already a lovely rosy red.
So far there are only two of us, but flock mama says that soon we will be joined by some very special friends called 'ex-battery hens'. Battery farms are evil places that put hens like us in teeny, filthy cramped cages with no room to move around or stretch and then after only 50 weeks those poor exhausted hens are destroyed to make pet food and commercial fertilizer. Flock mama gets very upset about this and is determined to help a local battery hen rescue charity by buying and re-homing some of the 'discarded' hens here with us to save them from being killed and minced up for catfood. Luckily flock mama's parents live in lovely countryside with a big garden and lots of grass, so we will all be able to run around together in freedom and safety, with lots of food and a big warm hen-house filled with straw to nest in at night. The battery hens will be in very bad condition when they arrive due to how they have had to live...sore legs, bald patches, cuts and bruises and we will have to be very kind to them while they get healthy, and teach them how to perch, how to scratch the grass for bugs, and how to flap their wings properly. I do hope they realize though, that as the head-laying hen and chief slug-finder that I'm in charge of this flock! "
So now you've met my new 'Girls'. I have been at home this past week and while there, my family decided to start keeping hens again. When I was a kid we always had hens, 10 at one point...producing an average of 70 eggs per week! I sold the delicious organic free-range eggs at a local farm shop for pocket-money. Anyway, since I've been at university my parents stopped keeping chooks, and as I'm able to spend some time at home now....and as mum is sick of the mass-produced so-called free range eggs, they decided that it's time to re-stock.
I choose the two ladies above from a local hen breeder. They arrived pretty nervous, but within 3 days were being hand fed, cuddled, petted and very happy to come when called.
Their favourite place in the whole garden is the patch of dry leaves and earth behind the greenhouse, and they have spent hours scratching happily finding all sorts of hen culinary delights. Ingrid's eggs are quite literally the best eggs I've had since...well, since the last time we kept hens!
Greta is a couple of weeks too young to lay, but my July she should be up and going. Ingrid is actually Scottish by birth...she was hatched at a specialist breeder's in Muirhouse and travelled to Northern Ireland by Ferry along with 50 of her sisters and cousins when she was a few days old. This is because Black Rocks are a specialist breed and there are only 2 liscensed breeders in the UK, one of which is in Scotland. Several of these chicks were then raised to maturity by John at 'Hens 'n' Huts' where I bought her and her good friend and coop-mate Greta. They go everywhere together, Ingrid is quite determined and outgoing, has to be first at everything...first out the door in the morning...first at the feeder...first to get a cuddle...first to head up the garden etc, and Greta who is a little more nervous, follows happily along behind and never out of chirping distance. Greta talks incessently and Ingrid isn't so chatty. It's funny...even hens have personalities!
To find out more about Battery Hen Rescue charities visit:
http://www.littlehenrescue.co.uk - England
http://www.nuthousehenrescue.co.uk - N.Ireland
http://www.animalplace.org - USA
Any of you who think about keeping a couple of chooks, do please consider ex-battery hens. They are very friendly and adapt quickly and joyfully to their new loving homes. Generally they begin laying for their new owners within a month or so, basically as soon as their legs get stronger and their feathers grow back. A friend of our family has a flock of 16 ex-battery birds, all tame, friendly and laying every day. The hybrid used in battery farming live about 3 years, and you will get them at about 1 year old....so that gives you 2 more years of egg production.
I kept hybrids for a few years, and they are lovely birds. The reason farms cull them at 50 weeks is because the birds are so unhealthy and exhausted that the production drops from about 350 eggs per year to around 280 at which point they are deemed 'inefficient'.
It is totally disgusting the way in which some of our food is produced.
All our chooks are part of the family and get to live in peaceful retirement after they stop laying, and when nature eventually takes its course they are buried in our pet graveyard.
So if you oppose the mistreatment of beautiful chickens, please be mindful of where you buy your eggs...never buy 'caged hen eggs' of 'barn eggs' at your supermarket...I know they are cheaper, but they support a horrible industry which in the case of the USA in particular, is not subject to any animal welfare or animal cruelty legislation. Please always buy free range or from local farmer's markets if you possibly can.
Here in the UK we have the wonderful 'Happy Egg Company' who were started up specifically to produce eggs from healthy, happy, free ranging, long-lived, well cared for hens. http://www.thehappyegg.co.uk
These are my supermarket eggs of choice when I can't get to the farmer's market.