Well it's taken almost a week, but here I am, doing battle with resizing images for the forum 
.
Last Saturday I drove down to Ringmer, across the border from Kent into East Sussex. Distance-wise the BHWT's East Sussex rehoming venue is the same distance from me as the Kent place in Biggin Hill, though Ringmer offered a pub lunch in a lovely sunny garden opposite the village green before I went to collect my "new girls".
To ensure Covid security, the British Hen Welfare Trust are still operating a "cluck and collect" service :lol: . You turn up at a reception desk (a table in the car park) and give your name, get checked off the list, then they radio through to the volunteers to let them know how many hens you've requested. The hens are then popped into smart new cardboard hen carrier boxes with carry handles and lots of ventilation holes, & are brought out to you ready for their journey to the land of grass and sky!
Several people hadn't shown up as promised, so I agreed to take on an extra hen- four rather than three. It did give the benefit that each hen had someone to share a box with for the journey home; they've never been alone before.
All was quiet in the car for the drive home, apart from me occasionally asking the "girls" if they were OK in their boxes in the boot. Once home, I left the boxes outside the run while I unrolled the wire fencing that divides the run into two halves on occasions like this. Holly & Hope were not impressed to have 50% less space to roam around and to have to sleep on a shelf in the greenhouse for three weeks, but they'll cope. Tufty, on the other hand, hasn't got the strength in her legs anymore to get up onto the shelf, so I'd decided that she'd stay in the other half of the run with the coop & the new girls.
How many people who buy the cheap eggs in the supermarket realise that they're laid by caged hens who look like this?
I'm waiting to discover their personalities before naming them, but three of them have been given a squirt of purple spray in the meantime, to help me tell them apart. The fourth was extremely good at escaping the purple spray, so she's become Harriet Houdini :lol:
Here she is, short of a set of bloomers at the moment!
View attachment 1
Over the next few weeks they should grow their new winter feather jackets to save their blushes. They were shivering on Sunday morning and had goosebumps (or should that be chickenbumps?), but they're acclimatising already. The BHWT don't recommend woolly jumpers for bald hens, as they get dirty and can chafe against their bare skin. I'm glad it's not January though; I've only ever had one ex-batt arrive before as bald as these four!
Meanwhile Hope (our Light Sussex) has started moulting in sympathy, so they'll all be in the same boat by the time they get to sleep together in three weeks' time...
It only took the ex-batts a couple of hours to work out what the feeder and drinker were for & how to use them. By evening 4, all but one were putting themselves to bed before the door closes (it's on a timer). The last one, currently known as "purple wing", has learned that I'll come & reopen the door for her and that if she walks up the ramp when I do so, she doesn't need to be picked up. They've never known human contact before, but they're now starting to get used to me and don't run away any more. "Purple bum" is brave enough to eat out of my hand already...
More ex-batt news to follow...
.Last Saturday I drove down to Ringmer, across the border from Kent into East Sussex. Distance-wise the BHWT's East Sussex rehoming venue is the same distance from me as the Kent place in Biggin Hill, though Ringmer offered a pub lunch in a lovely sunny garden opposite the village green before I went to collect my "new girls".
To ensure Covid security, the British Hen Welfare Trust are still operating a "cluck and collect" service :lol: . You turn up at a reception desk (a table in the car park) and give your name, get checked off the list, then they radio through to the volunteers to let them know how many hens you've requested. The hens are then popped into smart new cardboard hen carrier boxes with carry handles and lots of ventilation holes, & are brought out to you ready for their journey to the land of grass and sky!
Several people hadn't shown up as promised, so I agreed to take on an extra hen- four rather than three. It did give the benefit that each hen had someone to share a box with for the journey home; they've never been alone before.
All was quiet in the car for the drive home, apart from me occasionally asking the "girls" if they were OK in their boxes in the boot. Once home, I left the boxes outside the run while I unrolled the wire fencing that divides the run into two halves on occasions like this. Holly & Hope were not impressed to have 50% less space to roam around and to have to sleep on a shelf in the greenhouse for three weeks, but they'll cope. Tufty, on the other hand, hasn't got the strength in her legs anymore to get up onto the shelf, so I'd decided that she'd stay in the other half of the run with the coop & the new girls.
How many people who buy the cheap eggs in the supermarket realise that they're laid by caged hens who look like this?
I'm waiting to discover their personalities before naming them, but three of them have been given a squirt of purple spray in the meantime, to help me tell them apart. The fourth was extremely good at escaping the purple spray, so she's become Harriet Houdini :lol:
Here she is, short of a set of bloomers at the moment!
View attachment 1
Over the next few weeks they should grow their new winter feather jackets to save their blushes. They were shivering on Sunday morning and had goosebumps (or should that be chickenbumps?), but they're acclimatising already. The BHWT don't recommend woolly jumpers for bald hens, as they get dirty and can chafe against their bare skin. I'm glad it's not January though; I've only ever had one ex-batt arrive before as bald as these four!
Meanwhile Hope (our Light Sussex) has started moulting in sympathy, so they'll all be in the same boat by the time they get to sleep together in three weeks' time...
It only took the ex-batts a couple of hours to work out what the feeder and drinker were for & how to use them. By evening 4, all but one were putting themselves to bed before the door closes (it's on a timer). The last one, currently known as "purple wing", has learned that I'll come & reopen the door for her and that if she walks up the ramp when I do so, she doesn't need to be picked up. They've never known human contact before, but they're now starting to get used to me and don't run away any more. "Purple bum" is brave enough to eat out of my hand already...
More ex-batt news to follow...
