[Tullywood Farm]

I have to agree with Shetland Paul - sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.  Tescos take the eggs from these shed fulls of battery hens, they insist that the hens are all changed every 11 months, so that they are getting full egg production.

The hens are fed antibiotics in their water every week to stop them all from getting a germ and dying - this is done only to save them losing production.

We have been part of HFW's Chicken Out campaign since it started, and we have stopped taking in ex- battery hens, we used to take in 200 every year, and give them to people once they had re-feathered, as pets for the garden.

This was costing us money, which we did not mind at the time - but it was not stopping all the farmers intensively farming hens just for their eggs.

So Paul is right - never buy eggs from a supermarket, and do not rescue the hens.

If you hit them where it hurts - in the money department, then they will have to stop keeping chickens in large indoor sheds with less that an A4 sheet of paper to stand on each.

Please Join this campaign ASAP 

http://www.chickenout.tv/

Thanks  -  Julie x

[doganjo]

HFW believes in cross breed dogs and thinks breeding of pure bred dogs should stop, he told me so when I asked if his Springer/Weimaraner litter was an accident or deliberate.  It was a deliberate mating - he is an invert snob, and he enjoys the publicity.  I will carry on doing what I do.

[Tullywood Farm]

That fair enough Annie - we all have our own minds, and I appreciate what you are doing.

Just a little story though,

In Cavan there was a farm breeding Mink for fur.

They were well fed and looked after, and not dirty or anything. 

Then a few Animal Activists decided that it was unfair to breed them for their Fur - fair enough.  The problem was they released them all, from their pens to roam free in Ireland.

Since this happened, we (Smallholders all over Ireland) have had a lot of mink kill our ducks, geese, piglets and hens over the years.

We (The Republic of Ireland) have also lost all our Squirrells and local hares and rabbits.   
The local lakes fish stock has declined, and people and children have been attacked by mink when out paddling and boating on local lakes.

My point, and the moral of this little true story is - they would have been better off :-

A. Doing nothing - but carrying on putting people off buying the coats.

B. Killing the mink, and damaging the fur.  Then the farmer would have no stock and would not be able to sell the fur.  This may or may not stop him breeding  - which would still make the activists goal - but also thousands of other animals, wild and free, doing nothing wrong to anyone - would still be free and happy.

That's what I mean by being cruel to be kind - the beginning of the problem has to be stopped.

Its only the way I see things, and I know it is hard to not rescue animals - as I said we have rescued hundreds, if not thousands of hens. 

Funnily enough though, since we stopped, the man breeding hens for eggs for Tesco's
who we took them from has since closed down his farm.  So it may have helped.

Julie

[doganjo]

Letting potentially wild animals out of cages is irresponsible and a completely different issue form rescuing hens from a one foot square cage to be re-homed to freedom.  They don't kill things.  Giving the farmer 50p a hen doesn't even equate to the cost of what he'd have to pay to have them killed.

[Tullywood Farm]

The guy we took hens from had to pay £1200 per 1000 birds to have them taken away, this he often did, because it took too long to sell them for 50p each, and he needed to clean and re-stock the shed asap.

The chickens were taken away, the meat minced, and that is what you get in cheap chicken soup and chicken pies in the value ranges at large supermarkets and frozen food outlets

So even though the farmer had to pay to keep the money rolling in - the large supermarkets still made money out of those hens  - it is wrong - the system should be changed

Instead of having to have damn disabled toilets - we should have hens all free range - heres something useful those european people could work on for a change grrrrrr 

Rescue as many as you wish - but don't buy cheap chicken pies or soup = make your own from your own free range chickens that have had a good life

Julie

[Tullywood Farm]

It's the MONEY MAKING from this cruelty that annoys me - and how best to stop it
The poor hens  - it is totally wrong 

Julie

[doganjo]

I agree here, our methods may be different bit we have the same aim.  So how to go about it?  Email all MSPs?  Upload a website?  I don't know, but I won't be supporting HFW - perhaps Jamie Oliver though.  And anyway he's better looking - a real sweetie, and he loves his Mum! 

[Tullywood Farm]

Must admit I have a soft spot for Jamie too - have all his books, and his journal for writing my recipes in,
Tara even got me "cook with Jamie" on her Nintendo - he's lovely

Back to the subject - anything that you think will help I will join with, keep me informed on who to write to etc. as I say our local man closed down, but theres a lot of sheds full of hens all over Ireland.

Julie

[Roxy]

As far as I am aware, none of the hens rescued are injured on the way to being rehomed.  We have large crates, and do not overcrowd them.  I actually go into the sheds, and the hens are treated with care as we bring them out.

If we don't bring them out, the meat man will have them, and in fact does have the ones if we cannot bring them all out.  One way or another the farmer is getting rid of his hens, so surely we are doing no harm in bringing them out to be rehomed, and hopefully have a better life?  We are all doing everything possible to try and bring an end to battery farms, and hopefully before too long this will happen.  But while there is a demand for battery eggs, the farms will still be there.

Until the day comes when the farms are all closed, we will continue to do our best to get as many hens as possible out of those pens.  My personal view is that they did not choose to be battery hens thats man made - some of them may only live a few weeks when they come out, but they will have had a better life for even a short time. and that to the people who rescue them, is worth a lot.

I appreciate people see things from the other side on this matter, and thats fair enough - everyone is entitled to their opinions, and I do respect other people's views. 

[doganjo]

Aggie is not so scraggy now and is coming out of her shell, so to speak (pun intended lol)  Here she is on walkabout and a second video of the others going back in the run.  I hadn't noticed she had come out too so I eventually had to pick her up and put her back in as she was enjoying her freedom so much.  One happy ex battery hen I think!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_-gzEet1Hs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d1tr3SxAFU

[shetlandpaul]

again i don't think anyone has a bad thing to say about the rescuers but it still comes down to the brass in the end he makes money if they are rescued he loses money if they are not. now 50p may not sound a lot but assuming it would cost them the same to get rid of them the normal way. so for even a small flock of 2000 he would be improving his profit margin by £1. so he gains 2 grand for this small flock scale it up and its well worth it for them to be rescued.

did you report to the farmer about the injured birds. this breaches the defray rules he should have found and culled them. the only way to stop this system is a boycott like the crated veal calfs. if there is no market then they will change.

[sheila]

Roxy. you are right to keep on doing what you do. Any action is better then none and the problem won't go awy just because we don't like it!

[Rosemary]

I don't think not rescuing ex batts is going to stop the practice. That's not where the profit lies. People need to stop buying the egss and products made with the eggs to stop battery farming. Giving the hens a better home for a while is worthwhile IMHO, while we work to a time when rescues aren't needed.

[Roxy]

Believe me, I would like nothing better than us not having to do these rescues - in other words if the farms were not there.  Whatever we think about the farmers making more out of us rescuing the hens, than if they went for meat (and I do agree with what has been said on this point) the fact of the matter is that to us, its the welfare of the hens that is important.  OK, they may get a little stressed at us bringing them out and into crates, but for me, to think they have spent 12 months in those cages, and then have a trip to the abbatoir to be killed, I think what we are offering them is a better option.

As I said, the conditions the hens were kept in at the farm, I certainly thought they were not like the images we see on the television.  They were not cramped, were clean, had plenty of feathers.  On our last visit I saw one hen which would obviously not make the journey, and the farmer quickly dispatched it.  Incidentally, all the hens are checked by one of our volunteers to make sure they are in what we believe a good enough condition to withstand travelling.

I have had two here with foot problems, but that was due to them standing on wire mesh for so long, and their nails get long.  They are fully recovered and walking round my fields with the other hens now!!

[jameslindsay]

It seems likely that the battery practice of keeping hens will continue and as much as I disagree with it I think those of you that rescue these poor animals and offer them a better life are heroes To give these hens even just a few short months of "normality" is much better than the other option that was open to them.

It is a year to the day today that we rescued Rosie and Toggi, the 2 goats. The day they arrived we were shocked at just what bad condition they were in. The vet was immediately called and we were told that these 2 old dears were here to die, one was 10 and the other 12 and either could barely walk and they held their heads so low as they were so weak and miserable. Today they are 1 million times better, we invested a lot of love, care and money in them and now they are so, so happy and healthy. Even just providing them with food every day made such a difference as the previous owner had them in a field 10 miles away from their home and so rarely visited them which meant they were rarely fed. These 2 now make brilliant pets and I am so pleased to see the amazing change in them and it will be a very sad day when we do eventually loose them.

So, back to the thread any one that rescues any animal deserves a huge pat on the back.