2 weeks ago, after years of reading up but never quite taking the plunge, I had an opportunity to get my own backyard hens! The drawback ....they might need some tlc, might be in poor condition, might not have many feathers, might not lay etc etc because they were commercial hens......They had spent the last 18 months of their lives with 1500 other hens inside a barn with no access to the outdoors. The decision though was easy, it was either that or the slaughter house.
I didn't quite know what to expect on the day of collection. All the hens that had been allocated a home (868 altogether) were being brought from the farm to various points over Scotland.
When they arrived in the back of the trailer and were unloaded, they would get their first sight of the outdoors. The ladies organising the rescue, had a large holding pen in their property, where the hens were given a drink and some fresh air after their hot journey, before being handed over to their forever home owners. I don't think I will ever forget the looks on those hens faces as they emerged from the crates and saw the sky for the first time! Awesome!
The photograph above shows one of my girls...Princess (my daughter named her!) the top photo is on her first day of freedom, a little shellshocked, a few feathers missing, pale and generally scrawny....the picture below is her pictured a couple of days ago...2 weeks later and already the fresh air, de worming, daily treats of fruit, veg, mealworms etc is showin on her lovely red comb and newly emerging feathers. Her and her pen mate, Willow, are both proving total characters...my work mates, I am sure, are bored to tears of hearing of their daily antics..., grape volleyball, maggot mania and salad slalem are particular favourites!
It hasn't all been plain sailing though, and 2 weeks has been an intense learning curve....Quickly discovered they had Ascaridia galli ( a very large roundworm..10cm long!) and needed treatment for that, Princess hadn't laid until she got wormed and then I got presented with 1 egg with heavy calcium shell quickly followed by a thin shelled egg a few hours later, poor thing must have been holding on to the first one for a while. Obviously we can't eat their eggs for a couple of weeks so I have been scrambling them well, mixing with a bit of layers pellets and feeding them back to the hens which they love. Then Willow appeared lethargic, off her food and doing a weird dance with her head (think snake charmer and you'll be close)
I suspected impacted crop as I had seen her picking up and eating straw and her crop wasn't empty in the morning, so headed to the nearest Fishing and Bait shop, purchased some lovely white maggots and gave them to my hens.....I had been told live maggots work their way through the crop blockage. It was every hen for themselves when the maggots got presented to them!! Within an hour or so Willow had visibly picked up, and by the evening she was up scratching around and thankfully a couple of days on, seems right as rain.
I am not expecting this to be plain sailing and I will be on here picking up as much information as I can to help the latest additions to our household, but already they are part of the family and watching them develop, with all it's up and downs is proving to be the best reward anyone could want:0) (and they are so much more entertaining than tv!)
.......and their eggs are fab
