Wednesday 22 September 2010

Welcome to our ex-battery hen blog!

Thanks to Linda & Robert, founders of Free At Last, the ex-battery hen rescue group, we were priviledged enough to rehome 3 beautiful ex-battery hens on June 7th 2010.

These little ladies have had an appalling life - each hen crammed into a tiny cage with 4-5 others, and each with under an A4 sized space in the wire mesh cage to spend 15 months of their lives.

If the hens aren't rehomed by a wonderful charity like British Hen Welfare Trust, or Free At Last, they are sent for slaughter.

More about battery hens here.. be warned - it's hard reading:

Chicken Farming Facts

There are currently over 20 million battery hens in Britain.

A hen enters a cage at 20 weeks (after artifical incubation) and will remain in the cage for an average of 52 weeks before slaughter.

Each hen has less space than an A4 piece of paper in which to move around, leaving:

- no room to flap and stretch

- no means to dust bathe

- no perch on which to roost

- no nest to lay an egg in (they never actually see what they produce)

- no natural daylight

70% of eggs produced in the UK still come from battery hens.

Only 6% are produced by barn reared hens.

24% are produced by free range hens.

On average a battery hen lays only 15 more eggs a year than a hen that has been kept in barn or free range conditions.

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