Little Hen Rescue

Chicken welfare is a cause close to my heart, actually chickens generally, and because of that I make no apologies for blogging on the subject.

Little Hen Rescue are currently trying to re-home 10,000 ex-battery chickens. A battery farm is closing and any chickens without a home to go to will be sent to slaughter.  You can read what Sky News has to say here.  Any chickens that are re-homed will only go to homes where they will be kept as pets and will be subject to future checks. 

If you have the room, I urge you to offer a home to some chickens. They are incredibly sociable and friendly animals with funny personalities, just like a dog or cat. Mine will run to the backdoor as soon as I go in the garden and chatter away, they go mad for treats like sweetcorn and will let you know they’re happy to be picked up by squatting next to you.

If you don’t have the room to re-home, or you don’t have the time to care for them, there are other ways you can help these chickens.  You can make a donation, foster, sponsor a hen or knit them jumpers. Yes – knit them a jumper! You can see from the photo’s on this page why the jumpers are needed.

These 10,000 chickens need re-homing by the 28th June, otherwise they are booked for slaughter on the 29th.  Your support is needed.

Monday Blues

Having been without internet access over the weekend (thanks to someone cutting through a fibre optic cable and thus cutting the access), I have a pile of things to do, including emails to reply to. So apologies if I’m a wee bit on the slow side and please bear with me!

Thought I’d just share this photo with you. It puts a smile on my face when I’m feeling grumpy and wondering if the sun will ever come out and shine. 

Have a great day!

Chicken Keeping

The Only Fair family has some new feathered friends!  They have been with us for nearly 3 weeks now and I can’t remember life without them. It may sound very strange to some people but they really are gorgeous little creatures with lovely personalities and great fun to have around. When we go out in the morning they bundle out of their coop chattering away and rummage around under the trees, where they don’t tend to move for the rest of the day. 

As well as being great fun, we’ve also found them very useful for helping to reduce waste in that we can feed them lots of scraps - a good example is potato peelings, which have to be boiled up for them to eat but that takes no time at all, and of course vegetable scraps.

If you’re interested in keeping chickens, there are some great sites out there full of useful advice and information. I’d recommend that you check out The Practical Poultry Forum, Chicken Keepers and Poultry Chat.