Bringing chickens home to roost

By Niki Cardwell
BBC News

Many of the former battery chickens have never been outside before

Chickens are becoming increasingly popular as presents.

Breeders are reporting big increases in orders and some say they are struggling to keep up with demand.

The Battery Hen Welfare Trust wants people to consider giving homes to former battery hens.

It says the birds benefit from adapting to a free range life and this also does farmers a favour.

Jane Howorth set up the charity in 2004 with a van and collecting just a few dozen hens.

The Trust now has a network of 18 offices and re-homing has become a major operation.

"We arrange with farmers beforehand" she says, "and have an allotted number of birds to collect - typically between 500 and 1,000.

"Every single one of those hens will have a home waiting for her when we get back.

"We check through them to make sure they are fit and healthy to go and then during the afternoon we have a steady stream of people taking them off to their nice new homes."

In September, the Trust expects to re-home its 100,000 chickens.

Jane Howorth said: " I think people feel compassion for them really. They've never seen the outside world, they've never felt the sun on their back nor the wind in their feathers."

I met Jane and her team at their base in Devon.

Hens a becoming fashionable presents

They had just collected 300 hens from a nearby farm. These birds have never seen the light of day. They blink and look around them, slightly bewildered about their new surroundings.

Despite spending most of their life four to a cage, it does not take long to adapt - almost immediately they start stretching their wings and scratching at the soil.

Some take dust baths - something they have never been able to do. Nature kicks in and they fluff up feathers so the soil can cleanse and cool them.

The Trust says these birds are the lucky ones. They will live out their lives in someone's garden but 19 million other British battery chickens will go from their cages to the slaughterhouse this year.

The Trust's birds get a couple of hours to adjust and there is soon a long queue of cars and prospective chicken owners.

The Bradley family are the first to arrive - they have never kept chickens before but the Trust has given them care instructions.

"We've got it all planned out," says Ian Bradley. "We've built them a chicken shed in the garden which is nice and big.

"Most of the time they're going to live free range in the garden and when we're not around they're going to go into the run.

"A year ago on our son's sixth birthday he asked if he could have chickens and we said if he was still serious a year later he could have them. A year later that was all he wanted.

"So we gave him his birthday money and he's just donated it to the Trust for his chickens.

"We took him to a poultry store to see the pure breeds, but he decided he wanted ex-battery hens and decided to wait for these."

The chickens are all checked before being handed over. They have their claws clipped and anyone who wants help is given a quick lesson on how to pick up and hold their new pets.

Many of the hens have bald patches and floppy combs

Then they are put into well-ventilated boxes ready to be taken to their new homes.

According to Jane Howorth: "Within two weeks we think they have a fair level of fitness again. Their feathers take a little while to come through, but soon enough they'll all be back."

What's in it for the farmers? Why would they hand over their birds?

Phillip Martin retired last year after 40 years working in the poultry industry.

He said: "A farmer will pay about £3.45 for an egg-laying chicken but after 12-13 months they're considered spent, and the smaller battery farmer will have problems getting rid of them to make way for his next lot of birds.

"The dealers want to collect several thousand birds at a time. If they can't, they'll charge the farmers for taking the hens away, which could be as much as 25-30 pence a bird.

"It takes 6-7,000 to fill a wagon and if they have to make four to five pick-ups to fill up it will take too long and be uneconomical.

EU restrictions

"If they work with the Battery Hen Welfare Trust it doesn't cost the farmer and the new owners will get a nice hen for their garden and that'll give them eggs for the next couple of years."

On top of the economic pressures facing battery farmers the EU is also forcing the industry to change - from 1 January 2012, new regulations will see battery cages banned.

Jane Howorth stresses that the Trust is not trying to undermine farmers: "Obviously we want as many birds free-ranging as possible but we also acknowledge that there is a great threat from imported, cheap, caged eggs.

"And we would far rather see caged production continue in the UK than caged imports coming in from countries where we have no welfare control."