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.
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