Keeping Chickens Newsletter

Rehoming Battery Hens

Things have improved a little for Battery hens over the years but it is still the case that millions of chickens spend their lives in a cage too small for them to do their natural chickeny things such as walking about and pecking for grain, or to stretch, flap, dust bathe and roost. They are usually given about 2 years before they are considered 'spent' hens. It is at that point they are removed from their cages - there are always more to take their places.

The 'spent' or ex-battery hens are then usually sold on - as you might imagine the fate of a lot of these hens is in some kind of cheap processed food, but farmers are often open to letting them be re-homed. If you have the facilities and the resources to re-home battery hens, you'll find that the experience can be a very rewarding one, but it is important to understand a few things about the birds that you will be adopting and homing.

Photo By Andy Pike