Click the happy chicken  to find a battery hen rescue near  you!

you can  join with the stars like Pam Ayres, Jamie Oliver, Jimmy Doherty, Amanda Holden and Antony Worral Thompson

do something to be really proud of and save a battery hen today!

After watching Jamie and Hugh's Tv programmes re the plight of Battery Hens, we decided to contact our local Battery Hen Welfare Trust and put our name down for a couple of rescue ladies.

 Our rescue date was the 26th April 08 and we waited with bated breath all of a quiver for the arrival of our gals.

 We picked them up at 1.45 from Worcester and chose one pre plucked lovely and one slightly better feathered lady, we called them Ethyl and Gert. Now there’s no pretending these were attractive ladies when they arrived, bald and terrified they looked a very sorry sight indeed.

 We kept them in a six foot rabbit hutch until they feathered up a bit and got used to the space and regained their confidence and then they were added to our main chicken house one evening to live free ranging on the lawn in the day with a Light Sussex called Alice, a dark Brahma called Big Bertha, a Blue Ranger called Smokey and two Rhode Rocks, Copper and Murtle, we bought these birds from Sharon Gould who owns Pinvin Poultry in Worcestershire.

 These rescued ladies are absolutely hilarious and keep us chuckling with their mad antics, they are completely confident now and adore human company, they follow us around the lawn when they free range and make digging the garden a nightmare as you have to constantly watch out for a feathered head getting in the way!

 We get eggs a plenty from our wonderful girls and finding an egg in the nest box is like a little bit of Christmas every day!

 I would recommend everyone with a bit of spare garden to get chickens, though they do come with one warning, they are addictive!  One or two will never do hahaha but for simple entertainment they absolutely the best !

 Click this link  www.bhwt.org.uk    to visit the Battery Hen Welfare Trust to find your local chicken rescue and for locally bred  birds of fantastic quality we would recommend Sharon Gould of Pinvin Poultry, Worcestershire, you can visit her website using the link above and email or ring her as all contact details are on there.

Ethyl when she first arrived	Ethyl after some TLC !	Gert looking slightly plucked !
Smokey	Beautiful Bertha	Alice
Copper		Murtle
	such amazing colours

The Battery Hen
by Pam Ayres  see her website here

Oh, I am a battery hen, on me back there`s not a germ,
I never scratched a farmyard, and I never pecked a worm.
I never had the sunshine to warm me feathers through.
Eggs I lay. every day, for the likes of you.

When you has them scrambled, piled up on your plate,
It`s me what you should thank for that. I never lays them late,
I always lays them reg`lar, I always lays them right,
I never lays them brown, I always lays them white.

But it`s no life for a battery hen in me box I`m sat,
A funnel stuck out from the side, me pellets comes down that.
I gets a squirt of water, every half a day,
watchin`with me beady eye, me eggs roll away.

I lays them in a funnel, strategically placed,
So that I don`t kick `em and let them go to waste.
They rolls off down the tubing and up the gangway quick,
Sometimes I get to thinkin`, "that could have been a chick!"

I might have been a farmyard hen, scratchin` in the sun,
There might have been a crowd of chicks after me to run.
There might have been a cockerel fine to pay us his respects,
Instead of sittin`here, till someone comes and wrings our necks.

I see the time and motion clock is sayin`nearly noon.
I `spec me squirt of water will come flyin` at me soon,
And then me spray of pellets will nearly break me leg,
And I`ll bite the wire nettin` and lay one more bloody egg.

Aahh, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, GO ON  !

Save a battery hen today!