Battery Hens – The Opposite

I wanted to show you all how far my former battery hens are ranging. Here’s a picture

battery Hens Free Ranging

of them at the top of my field. it was taken a few days ago. The hens are quite difficult to spot, but if you look for the White Cockerel, the little brown specks are the hens. It still annoys me when I think of the conditions in which they’re kept. At least these are getting to feel the sun, the wind and the rain, and are learning what it’s like to be a real chicken.

They’re still not producing many eggs yet, but who cares? If I was worried about the eggs, I would have bought some point of lay hybrids. These will earn their keep eventually. If not by producing eggs, by clearing patches of ground for me, eating  slugs, or just by giving me the pleasure of their company.

I’ve also posted on my scything blog, about a deal that I’ve done for some egg laying ducks. You might want to check the article out.  Scything Article.The link is on the right side of the page. I hope that you enjoy it.

Deano

Battery Hens doing well

Well, the Battery hens are coming along fine, and their feathers are starting to grow back. If you take a look at my earlier post, you will see what they looked like when they arrived. Battery Hen here are some photos, which show the feathers starting to grow back.

battery Hen

The new feathers are the dark lines which you can see on the neck and back of this chicken.

battery hen back feathers

This close up view shows the feathers emerging from the sheaths, which are the dark bits on the photographs.

The hens still have a long way to go. The big feathers will take longer to grow back, and the cockerel will keep damaging the wing feathers every time that he mounts the hens, but they will certainly look better than when they came out of the cages.

The last picture shows some of them out and about in the field.

Battery hens and Cockerel

Enjoy

Battery hen Update

The ten ex battery hens are starting to explore a bit more today, with all of them out of the hutch for most of the time. it’s great to see them out scratching in the leaf litter, and acting like real chickens. I finally got the camera working, so here’s what they look like when they come out of the cages. This isn’t a model, this is a real chicken. it is supposed to be brown. The light patches are bald skin, and where most of the feathers are missing.  it’s almost as if the bird is posing for the camera, wanting people to see what the real price of cheap eggs is.

It must be quite strange for them. Open space, vegetation, sunlight, wind, living food, it’s not much to ask for really is it?

What a battery hen really looks like

I’ll get some pictures when this one looks like a real chicken again.

Deano