jadraper717
Hatching
- Jul 13, 2015
- 1
- 0
- 7
Hi
I am new to chickens. I live on 15 acres in the country, a small Indiana town. I have many other animals and never really thought about having chickens until my husband just recently went to work for a rendering plant. The business he works for picks up byproducts from Turkey farms and render it into meal. They also periodically get loads of dead "spent" hens (chickens) from egg production farms. These spent hens are gassed and then hauled to my husbands employer and then they are rendered into what is called Hot Grease. I am told that the farmers use this Hot Grease to spray on livestock food for extra protein. Sometimes there are survivors that dig themselves out of the pile of dead chickens. So my husband comes home to tell about this gruesome story and the next thing you know we are building a coop. We started off with buying some chicks and then just two days ago my husband called to tell me that there were 3 "survivors" that needed picked up. When I got there I was not prepared to see the shape these poor girls were in. They are so skinny, dirty, flopping colorless combs and do not have very many feathers. I was informed that 2 weeks prior to them being gassed they do not feed them and they give them something to make their feathers fall out ( the rendering plant likes them to have as few feathers as possible, it makes their process easier). The first night they pretty much just sat there in a confused state. Today they are eating and drinking. Others that have gotten these poor survivors say it takes a few weeks for them to act somewhat normal. It saddens me to know what these laying hens go through. I will never buy eggs from a store again. And I will be getting more of the lucky ones that make it through this horrible ordeal. If anyone has any advice on how to help these poor girls transition into a normal life please let me know.
Thank you
I am new to chickens. I live on 15 acres in the country, a small Indiana town. I have many other animals and never really thought about having chickens until my husband just recently went to work for a rendering plant. The business he works for picks up byproducts from Turkey farms and render it into meal. They also periodically get loads of dead "spent" hens (chickens) from egg production farms. These spent hens are gassed and then hauled to my husbands employer and then they are rendered into what is called Hot Grease. I am told that the farmers use this Hot Grease to spray on livestock food for extra protein. Sometimes there are survivors that dig themselves out of the pile of dead chickens. So my husband comes home to tell about this gruesome story and the next thing you know we are building a coop. We started off with buying some chicks and then just two days ago my husband called to tell me that there were 3 "survivors" that needed picked up. When I got there I was not prepared to see the shape these poor girls were in. They are so skinny, dirty, flopping colorless combs and do not have very many feathers. I was informed that 2 weeks prior to them being gassed they do not feed them and they give them something to make their feathers fall out ( the rendering plant likes them to have as few feathers as possible, it makes their process easier). The first night they pretty much just sat there in a confused state. Today they are eating and drinking. Others that have gotten these poor survivors say it takes a few weeks for them to act somewhat normal. It saddens me to know what these laying hens go through. I will never buy eggs from a store again. And I will be getting more of the lucky ones that make it through this horrible ordeal. If anyone has any advice on how to help these poor girls transition into a normal life please let me know.
Thank you
and Welcome To BYC! How kind of you to rescue those poor girls. If you do a search, there are a number of threads on BYC on battery hens you might like to check out, ie 
