Hello everyone

So glad I found this site, love your pictures and posts. It's nice to be able to talk to like-minded people. I have 61 chickens of assorted breeds at the moment and I'm selling free range eggs. Started with this when I was unable to get any nice "happy" eggs anywhere. HATE batteries, think they are the worst chicken related invention ever. Am now converting others to go the free range route. Everyone loves the eggs and seeing my girls running loose. The idea really took off in our town and we now have 6 farmers keeping free range hens and selling eggs. It's amazing!
I'm waiting for a local battery farm to sell their "spent" hens, going to buy 40 and rehabilitate them. That will happen any day now, can't wait. Any advice would be welcome!

 

Hi Liz, thanx for your message. I found our battery farm via word of mouth, but you could also look in the telephone directory or even on egg boxes for numbers of your local battery farms. Or just ask around. It's standard practice to throw out hens that doesn't lay enough anymore, though they still lay fairly well. They usually end up getting culled, what a sad end to a horrible life. I must warn you, if you want to give it a go, you may find the hens have been de-beaked. That makes feeding them a challenge. I make a porridge with maize and lay pellets which I put in bowls for them, otherwise they battle to eat. It's not the easiest way to increase the flock, but it's very rewarding!