The Chickens and the Eggs

The bookshop at the Cider Press Centre in Dartington has traditionally been quite a dangerous place for me to visit. They have such a gorgeous selection of lifestyle books there that I never fail to come away with a head full of ideas (and most likely an arm full of books) about things to do or make when I get home. A few years ago, I chose a book called The Country Living Handbook which contains great ideas and pictures of things to do in the countryside for each month of the year and I was quite intrigued by the section about keeping chickens.

I’d always been quite keen on the idea of keeping poultry, but if truth be told, I was holding out for a goose because I love their orange feet and beaks and can’t get enough of their honking noise. The book really sold me on the idea of fresh eggs though and while it was suggesting buying fertilised eggs to hatch at home, it also mentioned that it was possible to rescue ex-battery hens and give them a happy retirement home.

A little googling later and I’d discovered the Battery Hen Welfare Trust and got on their waiting list to adopt some hens. The BHWT work with farmers to provide new homes for their hens which would otherwise be sold off for slaughter and also campaign to inform consumers about the importance of insisting on free range eggs, not just in the actual you eggs you use but also in the prepared food such as biscuits, cakes and pasta that they buy. As it turns out, unless your cakes are bought from Marks and Spencer’s or Waitrose (who use free range in all their own brands), the eggs in your food are probably from caged hens.

However, there are some superstars including Hellman’s whi have just switched to free range in no small part due to the BHWT campaign and strangely enough, McDonalds also only use free range eggs in their mayoniase and yummy Egg McMuffins. The BHWT are now focussing their campaigning efforts on Mr Kipling as one of the leading producers of cakes in UK.

Armed with this information, I stopped eating food made with eggs from caged hens and also set about looking for a suitable house for our new girls as and when they arrived. When I stumbled across the Omlet website and the wonder of hen-house engineering that is an Eglu, I was hooked. A few weeks later our (pink) Eglu arrived and our first batch of hens followed soon after.

They weren’t the featheriest, strongest, healthiest or happiest hens you’ve ever seen but it was such a joy to seem them stretching out their wings, enjoying the sun on their feathers and scratching about in the garden, knowing this was the first opportunity they’d ever had to just be chickens, rather than part of an egg producing machine.

That’s not to say our ex-batts don’t lay us plenty of lovely eggs, but they sometimes have a bit of holiday, particularly during the winter months when they tend to focus a bit more on growing feathers which is fine by us. We’re now up to 6 hens and also have a lovely purple Eglu Cube in our garden too and we love to spend time with our hens as they each have such distinctive personalities.

Over the last year or so I’ve been working for the BHWT in my spare time, talking people through the adoption process, taking people’s bookings for hens and occasionally helping out with rescues the weekend which means I’m pretty busy in the evenings but it's totally worth it.

I don’t really want to go into the terrible conditions in which these poor hens generally live their short lives now as it would be a bit of a bring down but if you’re interested, you can read more about it here. Othewise, I would urge you to consider your shopping habits though, to see if you can become a caring consumer and cut out battery eggs from your all food (I warn you now, it does mean sometimes turning down cake). The BHWT also have co-ordinators all over the country and so if you think you may be able to offer some of our girls a happy retirement, get in touch. You’ll be so glad you did!