Anyone here keep ex battery hens?

[Eggsaregoodforyou]

Am sure the answer must be yes and would love to hear any first hand accounts/ tips/ info on keeping them

I am hoping to have three ex batt hens, to keep as pets ( any eggs will be a bonus!). Am currently reading up on how to keep them, what to expect etc.

In particular I am interested to find out what sort of temperaments/ personality's they are likely to have. I have read that battery hens tend to have friendly ish temperaments due to the breeding selection, do people generally find this is he case. They will be the only pets we will have and I am hoping to involve our two DC ages 4 and 8 as much as possible.

Tia

I've had them in the past. My experience of them is that they are very friendly and placid but may come with a vast range of behaviour problems and parasites. They have often only ever been kept in sheds so don't really know about hte outdoors at first. They also tend to be extremely noisy at first as they've had to squawk loudly to make themselves heard above the thousands of others in their shed. They calm down after about 3 weeks as they get used to not having to shout all the time.

BTW they are not going to be "battery hens" as they are illegal in the UK now. They will been "free-ranging" but often this means kept in very large shed.

People rant about feather loss etc, but the reason you are rehoming these hens is that they have reached their first moult and will not lay for a couple of months as they regrow their feathers. This is why the farmer does not want to keep them- they still need feeding and produce no eggs during this time as they need the protein.

One of my past rescued hens used to lose all her feathers at once, even years after coming to live us. She did this in November, so every November she spent 3 weeks indoors next to the fire.

My advice is to treat them scrupulously for all the parasites hens can get. They will be very friendly but somewhat out of condition. They do not live very long (engineered to lay very well for about 2 years but their life expectancy is about 4). After their first moult they tend to a a bit less well but you will get eggs from them, just not every day.

We have kept them in the past.
They tended to be very quiet to start off with, then within a few weeks develop their chickeny personalities, but were generally friendly.

They may be in the middle of a moult, so might look a bit oven ready (this isn't down to cruelty btw, the change-over in the farm takes place at the time when the chickens moult- at around 72 weeks). They might not lay for a few weeks, again down to the moult.

They will be used to eating layers mash, which is loose powdery food, rather than pellets. You can buy this, then gradually change over to pellets. You can also mix the mash with warm water, which ours seemed to like. They will probably need worming, either using something like verm-X or flubenvet (some feed merchants have bags of food ready mixed with flubenvet).

The only downside was that they don't tend to live very long. The intensive life (whether battery (from enriched cages) or free range) takes it out of them.
The longest we had one (over the years we have had over 20), was just over a year. The shortest two weeks :(
It was rewarding because you see them experience their first dust bath, chasing flies etc. It was lovely to think that, even if they only had short lives, they had a chance to be free and be in the sun.

We haven't had any for a few years now, might be time to think of getting a few more :)

Ah, that took me so long that duchesse has said it all :)

Thanks so much for the replies!

Realised as I had posted that real 'battery' hens are no longer kept in this country. It's been an eye opener for me finding out just what 'fee range' means tho!! Am sure it varies hugely but short of hens which are kept mostly outdoors even free range seems quite intensive!!

I will be getting the hens checked over bya. Poultry vet shortly after getting them nd am very keen to make sure they have the benefit of whatever treatments ( worms, lice etc) that can be offered.

I think the biggest challenge will be in preparing the. DC for the possibility they may not live that long, and that they may even die shortly after being Rehomed to us.

We were very honest with our dc about this.
We pushed the point of giving the chickens some happy, normal chicken experiences, for however long they would have, rather than being a new pet with a predictable expected life span (if that makes sense!)

Although ours were sad when we lost one, they could see that while we had those chickens, their lives were very good.

Question from a non chickeney person, if free range doesn't quite mean what everyone thinks it means, what egg brand can I buy from the supermarket that is the best in terms of animal welfare standards? Is there one?

Theanna - organic are the best welfare standards in intensive systems.
IME, there isn't a lot to choose from between battery and free range, they both have their downsides which usually equate to a miserable life for chickens.

Best of all would be to find a local chicken keeper, generally chickens are happier and have more space than farmed chickens. The eggs are usually cheaper too!

Theanne- organic will mean lower stock levels because as soon as you stock too intensively, you start getting diseases appearing that are difficult to treat organically. So almost without exception organic will mean better welfare standards because the producers have to rely on the animals remaining healthy more, than treating them prophylactically for everything under the sun.

Having said that, if you can find someone locally whose hens you can see are happy and well cared-for, that is the best way to buy them!

Ah, I see I have basically repeated what Fav said!

These eggs are sold In a Lot of shops in my region (SW) and from what's presented fit my idea of free range much more closely

Thehappyegg.co.uk

thehappyegg.co.uk

Be prepared that 1 sometimes 2 may not survive, we have ex 'free range hens' but these hens have a hard life, for example the waitrose free range blacktailed chickens, are 9 chicks per square meter, its not alot of room and the pecking order means less assertive chicks miss out on food and water. (No dig at waitrose, its just thats the statistic i know, not sure what other supermarkets have as their criteria for 'free range'). Our three where scrawny and sickly when they arrived, two survived and two years on these two are great characters, lay really well and real pets, oh yes they come when they are called and keep the cat and dog in order too...
As others have said expected them not to lay whilst they are moulting. Our two are currently laying everyday.
Meal worms are expensive, but my chicks love them, although they can be a bit 'pecky' until they have had their morning treat, and they will nip my toes in the morning until i have given them their treat!!

Thank you, I already buy organic eggs usually so feel a bit better, will try and find a local chicken keeper who can sell me some too. I often buy the happy egg ones (only because of the name!), thanks for confirming they are not the worst ones