Friday 21 August 2009

Meet The Girls

Now the ex batts have settled into their new home it is time for their house warming and for you to meet the girls. As mention in the last posting there are two groups of ex batts, the blues and the greens.

First off we will meet the greens as they have taken their time to settle in and have yet to show off their personality's. As a result we have only named one of girls in this group.



Endeavour is the boss of the greens, she is the bravest of the group and takes no messing from the other girls.

The second group of girls are the blues, this bunch are so full of personality that they are positively bursting.

Tesco is the boss of the blues. she was orignally called Tesco because she started off being a little bit of a bully to the other chickens. However, now she has settled into things, she rules them all fairly. Not only is she the biggest chicken of all the groups, this also extends to her personality as she is very easily frightened.

Kate was the second chicken out of the chicken house when she first arrived. She is a very shy and quiet girl. However, she is a bit of a poser and loves to have her photo taken. Hence we named her Kate, after Kate Moss.


Hatty is one chicken who is not shy, even about her lack of feathers, she is so full of personality and is so friendly. She is definately a people chicken. She was called 'Hatty' because she was just so very tatty when she arrived, that we nicknamed her 'Tatty Hatty'.

Derrière is one girl who really is on a 'see food' diet. She thinks anything and everything you hold is potentially food and is for her. This one goes crazy for is bread and if she thinks you are not giving it to her fast enough, she will take it from you and your hand long with it. She was named because of her lack of feathers on her Derrière, (behind)

Brownie, who is on the right, is a fully feathered, brown, shy little chicken, who's personality has recently changed, not necessarily for the better. However, that will be saved for a later post.

Tuesday 11 August 2009

The Ex-Batts Arrival at there New Home


Our 10 ex-batts were collected from the pick up location in Burseldon, near Southampton after they where rescued from the battery farm by The Battery Hen Welfare Trust.


We were told by the rescuers of our 10 new friend's that it was one of the worst farms they had seen, where some of the birds were sick and blind.

The chicks were transported back to their new home in the back of a trailer. The hens enjoyed their journey, in their boxes packed with straw, keeping them warm but also more importantly well ventilated. By the time the girls' got to their final destination they were in a deep sleep. When we first saw them lying there, for a minute we had feared the worse, but there was nothing to worry about.

As soon as we arrived, we unloaded the boxes containing the precious cargo of little threadbare hens and carried them to their new homes down by the sunflower patch. Here we unpacked them from their boxes one by one. As we did so we put on their coloured rings so we could identify which house they belong to. There are two separate houses in which five hens live. Each house is described in these diaries by the colours of the ring which the hens wear.


The two houses are the Blue or Green house. We also sprayed them with a nibble deterrent to deter the girls from pecking and plucking each other. They actually seemed to like the taste but their nibbling and pecking of each other didn't seem so vicious. Following this we left them to get used to their new surroundings.


We left the side door open which we covered with the chicken-wire box lid to stop them getting out and opened the door to their enclosure, so they could see and get used to their new domain.

Thursday 6 August 2009

Welcome to The Ex-Batt Diaries



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Here we will be posting the News and Diary of 10 Ex-Battery Hens who were rescued from one of the worst battery farms in the UK.

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