Ex Battery Babes

[Shirley]

Just watching Jimmy's Farm... it's heartbreaking looking at the ex-battery hens that he's just picked up. In such a disgraceful state, some look almost oven-ready due to the lack of feathers. They were described as robots, and that is just what they are... given freedom they didn't know what to do.

SURELY - if a consumer saw a scaggy bald bird lay an egg they wouldn't eat it.... would they?? Of course these birds are hidden from sight so people carry on eating these eggs and allowing the birds to be kept in awful conditions....AND it's legal.

I knew that battery girls had a hard time of it and will not eat eggs from such birds as that would condone the practice of battery farming.... but I am honestly shocked at the degree to which this affects the birds.

My next chickens will be ex-battery girls if I can find a local place.

[Hepsibah]

My first hens were ex-batts and they were a blimmin' mess when I got them. They had been subjected to feather pecking to such a degree that their skin had hardened.
They spent their first night huddled together in a heap at the back of their shed and had to be put outside the following morning. Contact with people terrified them....hell, everything terrified them at first. Watching them change day by day into fluffy, flapping, scratching hens who were friends with anyone with a spade or a bag in their hand was heartwarming but it made me very angry with the poultry industry and even more angry with the people who validate the suffering by paying for the product of it.
I thought that if people only knew what went on they wouldn't want to be a part of it but they don't want to know. They want to be able to buy four chickens for a fiver (that's how much they were on offer for today at our high street butchers) and they want a dozen eggs for less than a pound and they don't want to hear about suffering, they just want to not know, they want somebody else to worry about it. A person could go mad trying to change things so I've given up, now I just do what I can do myself and try to lead by example. Even if it does mean that most people seem to think I'm a little bit loopy for it.

[Shirley]

I've given that up for lent... well actually I'm never going to start it up again. Why should we worry about what people think about us when WE know that we are doing some good - I've even decided to do what your signature says Hep - Dance like noone is watching... life is too short.

I do think that you are right - people know what is going on, they know the conditions that animals are kept in, but the end product is CHEAP and that speaks a thousand words.

I think that many people think that the stuff you see on telly is almost the extreme, and not the norm. Seeing for themselves might make them think differently.

[Wombat]

Yep, we got "spent layers" years ago and it is interesting to see how the normal chook behaviour patterns start to re-assert themselves over time. The big problem is de-beaking because it is permanent and it restricts their ability to forage.

We used to buy the free range eggs before we got our own chooks - it is really sad the things done in our name, for a cheap feed!

Nev

[Millymollymandy]

I bought my three from a market. OK they weren't bald or pecked but they had been crushed together in a tiny cage in the back of a van and then picked out willy nilly upside down by their legs or wings or whatever came to hand first..... I just was happy to get 3 of them away from conditions like that. If it is sunny the poor birds just sit there sweltering on the market stall until someone buys them.

It took them a long time to learn to do chickeny things and when they finally learnt to hop up onto the perch to sleep I was really happy!

[Libby]

I saw a programme many years ago on battery farm conditions and haven,t eaten anything less than free range since.
I think it,s a disgrace that its allowable to keep animals/birds in such conditions.
People DO know though, that,s the sad thing

[Muddypause]

Quite agree.

For much the same reasons, I try to only buy organic milk (though come to think of it, I've never applied the same reasoning to other dairy products; have to work on that). Milk production inevitably leads to bull calves, most of which are condemned to a life in a veal crate.

[Goodlife1970]

Half of my hens are ex-battery hens too,all debeaked and bald when they arrived,lovely to see them now with a full compliment of feathers. I once bought some ex-free range layers and bizzarely enough they hadnt a great deal of feathers either and were also de-beaked,why was this?

[Hepsibah]

Most of the time the free range hens come from the same supplier as the battery ones and they are de-beaked at a couple of days old. They are normally bald because they are considered 'spent' when they begin their second moult so that is when they are sold.
I've found the local supplier around here so we (the chicken keepers on our allotments) get together to buy a hundred birds or so once in a while so we get them before they go in the cages.

[Goodlife1970]

Ah I understand now. Do hens that are kept in larger numbers moult more than hens that are in small flocks? Ive got a dozen at the moment and they dont seem to loose as many feathers when they moult as the free range and battery birds that I bought,they looked like someone had started to pluck them and had got bored! Mine looke scraggy around the moult but dont have bald patches of any great size.

[ina]

Milk production inevitably leads to bull calves, most of which are condemned to a life in a veal crate.

Just to add some information on that: Veal crates have been banned in the UK since 1990, and all EU countries will have to follow that in 2007. Since BSE no export of calves has been allowed, so no British calves will have suffered the fate of a life in a crate... However, "KAB" is quite a common practice on large, highly "efficient" dairy farms - that stands for "killed at birth". Selling them simply doesn't get you anything in return that comes near what it costs to feed and house them. This, amongst other facts, is why I also buy organic dairy products whenever possible.

[herbwormwood]

Milk production inevitably leads to bull calves, most of which are condemned to a life in a veal crate.

Just to add some information on that: Veal crates have been banned in the UK since 1990, and all EU countries will have to follow that in 2007. Since BSE no export of calves has been allowed, so no British calves will have suffered the fate of a life in a crate... However, "KAB" is quite a common practice on large, highly "efficient" dairy farms - that stands for "killed at birth". Selling them simply doesn't get you anything in return that comes near what it costs to feed and house them. This, amongst other facts, is why I also buy organic dairy products whenever possible.

As the European ban on British cattle meat has been lifted it is possible that live exports will soon be resumed to the European Veal trade.
See
http://www.viva.org.uk/mediareleases/pr ... rotest.htm
for more info.

[herbwormwood]

Half of my hens are ex-battery hens too,all debeaked and bald when they arrived,lovely to see them now with a full compliment of feathers. I once bought some ex-free range layers and bizzarely enough they hadnt a great deal of feathers either and were also de-beaked,why was this?

I read recently that the definition of free range is rather loose and could mean hens being cooped up together in a barn, and it does not mean they are foraging outside in natural conditions it just means they are not in cages. So the reasons for feather loss and debeaking could still apply as they could still be aggressive towards each other and upset.

[ina]

As far as I know, for "free range" they must have access to the outside; otherwise they'd have to be called "barn eggs". Of course, you can't force the hens to go outside, some might prefer to stay indoors. I've seen that myself on a farm, where they really had the free-est range imaginable, and one stupid cockerel just would not leave the shed! I tried to chuck him out, with terrible results; he was obviously extremely stressed and didn't calm down until he'd found the way back in.

[Millymollymandy]

There was a discussion about this on Acountrylife. They (the folk who probably know what they are talking about!) said the chickens were too scared to go outside as they had never been taught/shown that outside was an OK place to go, and that those few who ventured outside huddled together close to the door/pophole.

There was a free range place not far from where I live, where the chickens (and geese and ducks) were outside properly free ranging, but the poultry all disappeared last autumn during the first wave of having to keep poultry indoors because of the bird flu scare. Probably closed down like so many other businesses have.