Ex-Batts Archives

Choosing The Right chicken

How to choose a chicken is a question that many people ask us. This is a huge topic. There are many many different breeds of chicken – over 300 in face, and within those breeds there are many colour variations. For example: the Sussex chicken, comes in white, coronation, red, speckled, light, buff and silver. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder because not all hens are brown. It is nice to get a variety of hens for your garden flock, either to be able to tell them apart or just for interest. Garden hens don’t need to be kept in flocks of the same type or colour. Chickens are not focussed on colour or breed differences. Their society is much more complex than that but at the same time, refreshingly simple.

Our advice is always this:- choose your chicken based on what you like the look of. Almost all chickens will lay eggs, some more than others. Egg numbers depends on the breeding, age, health status and the time of year. Show chickens tend to lay less because they have been selected for breeding based on beauty, not egg numbers.

Which is the best chicken for children?

This topic has potential to be a can of worms. The quick answer is most chickens will be happy around children, but not all children are suitable around chickens. Thorny issue in some parents eyes. So, look at it from a chickens’ point of view. They are a prey animal, and as such they are always on high alert for anything which may consider them an easy meal. This is common for most birds. An ever vigilant bird will feel anxious if there is unknown noise or behaviour coming from another creature or object in their territory. Their first thought is going to be “is this thing a threat”? If a child dashes over to the chicken, invading its’ space then it is surely going to answer that question with a resounding YES and act accordingly.

With that in mind a child (or adult) needs to learn to work to gain the trust of the bird, and only then, will it allow close and trusting contact. A word of warning: if that trust is pushed beyond a boundary or the trust is abused then it is very unlikely to be recovered. Chickens don’t forgive and they don’t forget. Their lives often depend on those lessons which is why they are set in stone.

Will a chicken peck my children

Chickens have no teeth. They only have a beak which is quite pointed. These creatures do not normally attack anything unless they feel very threatened. You can hand-feed a chicken quite safely, although a young chicken (like most children) does not always have the finesse to do it gently. This is very apparent if they have trust issues as they rush to take the food, rather than taking their time. They have pin-point accuracy when taking food from a hand and are going for the food, not the skin of the hand. A tap on the hand however can be upsetting for a child.

Which hens lay the most eggs

It is all too easy to get hung up on doing your research on how many eggs a hen will produce. Choosing a chicken this way comes under the banner of “how long is a piece of string”. Sure, a commercial hybrid such as a Warren or a Hy-line brown will lay an egg virtually every day but they will only do so up to the age of about 72 weeks. After that you will get a very diminishing return. A pure breed will lay fewer eggs, but over their laying lifetime, they could well lay the same number in total but over a longer period. It’s horses for courses. Hybrids will generally live fast die young, but pure breeds are more slow and steady wins the race.

We actually think that the value of a chicken is worth much more than just what they produce. They have hidden depths which are revealed to their lucky keepers as time goes by. Eggs are exceedingly fresh, very delicious and exciting to receive as a gift from your hens, but it will eventually dawn on you that hens are way more than just a quirky garden ornament. Choosing the right chicken for you is a matter of personal preference.

A chicken can be summed up as

Friendly
Interactive
Interested in you
Accepting of affection
Therapy
Provider of purpose to lost souls
Provider of the most delicious eggs
Companions
Education
Ambassadors for all bird-kind
Garden designers extraordinaire
Source of mirth and joy
Huntresses
Intelligent
Beautiful

This is a very concise list but I could go on and on, but I will leave that up to you. Once you have discovered the joy of chicken keeping, you will be able to compile your own list. Some of the items on my list will I am sure find their way onto your list too.

Ex-battery hens

Chicken Breeds, Ex-Batts, General Chit Chat / By HHens / 9th December 2023 / battery hens, British Hen Welfare Trust, ex-batts, Fresh start for hens

Ex-Battery Hens Rehoming

Ex-Battery hens are very popular. Each person that takes on these hens means that one less hen meets their maker early. The British Hen Welfare Trust is one of the original rehoming charities. BHWT was instrumental in changing hearts and minds about the hens in our egg industry. Ever since they started in 2005, they have rehomed around 50,000 hens a year of ex-battery and ex-colony hens. These became affectionately known as ex-batts or ex-battys. It has been the BHWT mission to educate people. They want people to no longer tolerate the conditions that these creatures have to endure in order to provide your chucky egg. As of 1st October 2017, the total numbers of rescued hens hit 600,000. BHWTs sterling work has used public pressure to encourage the government and food suppliers to give top priority to hen welfare.

A lot of people therefore now think twice about the label on the egg box which has to state the type of accommodation the producing hens have.

Rescued hens do not have it all rosy

Hedgerow Henporium have also taken on ex-commercial hens, but there is a dark side to rehoming. Ex-batts or ex-commercial hens are very cheap to buy. People who only want cheap hens are not always the best clued up as to what makes a good environment for a hen. Time and time again we hear of people who have rehomed hens, only to have allowed them to be fuel for a fox. We have also seen a number of dodgy practices during rehoming events. Queues of white vans taking on loads of hens which are very suspect. Call me paranoid but I can’t help but think the destination for these hens is not going to be a happy one. We have enough people calling on us wanting hens for purposes that go against our ethos to know what goes on.

Why do hens need to be rescued in the first place?

The battery cages, as they were known, only allowed for a space of about an A4 sheet of paper per hen. Hens were kept in warehouse style conditions which consisted of tiers of cages where thousands of hens were kept. Such high concentrations are solely to provide cheap eggs. Thanks to public and celebrity pressure, the old style cages throughout Europe and UK are now outlawed in most countries. The replacement system is called a colony cage. I don’t personally think they are any better than the old system, as there are about 50 birds per cage. The cage has a nesting area, a perching area and a dustbathing area. They are still cramped, albeit not to the same degree. The lights are kept on for 15 hours to keep the birds in laying condition.

Hens at 72 weeks of age, however are considered “spent” and their economic value suffers. Many are rehomed but this is a drop in the ocean given the billions of birds in these systems. The remaining hens are sold off at between 30p and 50p per bird to go into the processed meat chain for things such as pies, and animal foods.

How to get hold of Ex-Battery hens

If you want to rescue an ex-batt lady then there are many rehoming charities, the main one is the British Hen Welfare Trust. They are countrywide and have regular rehoming events. Fresh Start for Hens is another charity for rehoming hens which you may find closer to you. You will need to register on either of these organisations website so they can coordinate hen rehomings in your area. You will be vetted so be prepared.

What to expect from ex-commercial hens

Ex-commercial hens are usually poorly feathered, but this is not because they have necessarily been mistreated. In preparation for their exodus from their cages, some suppliers can often squeeze the last few eggs out of the hen by cutting their final food bills as a bonus. By withdrawing or lessening the feed that these birds eat, it often causes a spontaneous moult. Their bodies still have enough resources to produce those final few eggs but the profit margin is much greater for the supplier. Most chickens at the age of around 18 months will moult for the first time then anyway. It is a natural phenomenon but can be prematurely trigged by reduced feed intake or stress.

Health implications

Ex-batt hens come out of confinement with poor feathering. “Oven ready” is a term often used to describe these hens. Weakness or damaged limbs are another common factor. This can be because of the rough handling of their rescuers in their attempts to extract frightened birds from their cages. It can also be due to osteoporosis as calcium is stolen from the bones in order to create a shell. Top producing hens are always at the risk of osteoporosis by virtue of the number of shells they make. The hens are not used to moving around a great deal so are often limited in their limb strength.

Lots of birds together can generate significant amounts of heat. Hens lose heat through their combs which can become very pale in a high heat environment. Caged hens have also never seen the daylight and to be thrust into a strange world can be very disorientating for them. Given time, patience, and a good diet they will blossom into fully feathered and very happy little creatures.

People think that laying hens are mis-treated

This is not necessarily the case. Subjecting a hen to any form of stress will result in a loss of eggs. This is going to be counter-productive to anyone who makes their living from a hen which lays. For a hen to be in peak egg production, she needs good food, good health, and very little stress. Anybody who keeps hens will certainly know that if a hen does not receive all these things then eggs will disappear. Even a cold snap, or freak weather conditions can result in no eggs for days.

Many people think that the hens are not fed correctly because they appear thin. A laying hen will almost always look rather thin under feather coverage. Only meat birds put on significant amount of muscle. Laying hens almost always have a prominent keel bone because of poor breast muscle. Hens are either good at meat or eggs, they are rarely good at both.

Things to considering before taking on any hen

If you do want to have the feel good factor of rehoming an ex-batt hen then please do your research first. Hens need safety, good food, and healthy environment to thrive. Consider reading books or better still a course such as ours in chicken keeping so that you can give them the best life possible.

Ex-battery hens Read More »

Ex-Batts

Choosing a Chicken