Nacktschnecken omlet Cube

[Cranfield Kate]

this is a "need to share with people who will understand" moment.

 

i went to pick up my new ex-batts yesterday (this is after the friend giving me a lift to go and get them informed me in the morning that he didn't actually have a car.... thank god for another friend!) and they're now safely in their temporary coop before they move in with the existing pair.

 

so far so good (fingers crossed, touching wood, etc) but Bertha is HATING them! the noise she's making is just awful and she hasn't even met them yet! the neighbours are going to hate me.... i can see her getting a lot of treats this week to shut her up.

 

anyway, the new girls are in a bit of a state and have that awful shell shocked air about them. but i am managing not to cry. as i get to know them i will think of some names, so far they're just the New Girls.

 

i want everyone i know to come and visit them so they can see what factory farming does to animals.

[Chicken shack]

I would love to meet your new girls but I don't think you live anywhere near me. I only ever bought free range eggs before I had my own girls so I guess I don't need converting. Well done I would probably cry anyway, I cry when ever I read about battery farming.

[mrswalton]

I cried when I went to collect my 3 ex batts and they'd been rescued a month before I got them so already looked better. I just couldn't get over how

pitifully bald they were and what they'd

been through to get that bald! It's a hideous system .

 

Good luck with getting your new girls settled in andhope grumpy bertha chills out a bit

Zoe

[the bradley bunch]

i too cried when i went to collect my girls from the bhwt. i hadn't even seen them when we were driving up the farm road and i suddenly came over all emotional i think the anticipation was too much for me!

our girls, especially my poor Boo, were in a terrrible condition and feather-bare, and poor old Doris bore the scar of a torn off wattle

we honestly didn't believe Boo would be alive the next morning, she didn't move an inch, was too weak to stand, and was burning hot to touch. so i gently cuddled her and put her in her cosy new bed, and i cried myself to sleep that night.

but now 5 months on all 3 girls are growing back some beautiful fluffy feathers, and are loving mischevious little characters who thrive on human attention...the same species who have treated them so badly. it always amazes me how they find so much love for us . i often wonder if they remember their past lives, and i hope that the new happy memories they've created with us will be the only ones that last forever.

 

you should feel very proud of the home & love you're giving to these special little girls

and i wouldn't worry about bertha, ex-bats are pretty fesity when it comes to looking after themselves! and a few eggs for the neighbours always goes down a treat

[scarlettohara]

I have put up of photos of my new ex-batts - Mrs Summers is almost all bald

[Cranfield Kate]

I saw those - Mrs summers is a wonderful name. I'm so glad i got them . i think everyone should have ex batts at least once in their lives so they GET IT and start reading labels and caring where their food came from. and all schoool kids should have to meet farm animals so they know what they look like. a friend of mine has never seen a cow.

[scarlettohara]

Mrs Summers had laid an egg in the nest box - she made herself comfy, put lots of straw of her back then settled down to lay - clever girl

[Donna C]

well done. i hate it when people say how cheap they got eggs, then i ask if free-range only to be told no . I wish they'd put a picture of a real ex-batt on the box. might make people think twice.

[LeeMeadfan]

Totally agree Donna C.

 

There always seems to be more boxes of those on the shelves than of FR eggs.

 

And when some shops advertise 'cheap' eggs, you just know they're battery - or as they like to call them -'from caged hens'

 

Would people buy milk from 'caged' cows? I guess they would if it was cheap enough & they were that sort of person.

I feel we should encourage/fund schools to grow their own veg & have some chickens so thay have som eidea where their food comes from & to care for animals.

 

Sorry - bit of a rant there!

[dancing cloud]

Well done you and everyone else who's adopted ex-batts . Feel free to cry as much as you like - we understand! I've only ever had ex-batts and have cried on all three occasions I've collected some. The second batch were spectacularly bald and photos of them reduced several people at work to silence, but they soon transformed into fully-feathered cheeky chooks and the "before and after" photos show just how far they have all come

 

Have you thought of names for them yet? I know it sounds silly, but it seemed a real rite of passage to me giving them names and individual identities - the end of the battery hen era and beginning of the free loved-and-cared-for little girl

 

My existing ones have always had a good shout and bawl at the new girls when they arrived and would even go out of their way to go and see them just to shout at them, but on both occasion they integrated nicely and without bloodshed. Hope Bertha's getting it all out of her system quickly!

[MadWelly71]

Hi Kate & All,

 

I also picked up my new 3 ex-batts on Sunday from a place near Guildford (same place I got my previous 4 last year).

 

And yes, I was UTTERLY SHOCKED when I took them out of their boxes and put them into their new coop, I completely forgot just how badly anaemic, featherless and battered those little girls look. I honestly expected them to not last the night.. but they did. They are still very shocked but managed to go outside and explore their run and start scratching. I think we still need to work on their "Go To Bed" routine (our automatic door closes as soon as it gets dark) and so I had to pick them up from under the trees & corners by hand and put them to bed.

 

With regards to getting them introduced to your residential ladies... HAVE FAITH! Norma, my last remaining ex-batt from last year, got introduced to my new 2 Black Rock chicks just a couple of weeks ago. Oh, the drama! She had a right hissy fit and declared her dismay very loudly. In the first couple of days I simply let her roam freely outside the coop/ run all day and then put her back with the other 2 new ones for the night.

Yes, there was loads of "pushing off the perch" (apparently their coop - designed for 20 chickens - was simply not big enough for her AND 2 others...) but after 3-4 nights, the seem to have settled into a routine and the she complaints only briefly, probably to declare everything is still MINE, MINE, MINE.

 

I am lucky enough to have 2 coops & 2 runs so for now I am keeping the new ex-batts in the main run and let them settle in and then over the next week I will let them meet & greet the old team and slowly get them used to each other.

 

So, good luck and hang in there - it will get better. PROMISED

 

Manuela

Ex-Batt NORMA

Black Rock RUSTY & MEGAN

New Ex-Batts LIZZY, RITA & MAE

[sophiemostly]

We have ex-batts too, with three newbies adopted this weekend, so I know how you feel. Am trying not to get too teary about it as actually they're starting to look happier already but I'd forgotten just how tragic and shell shocked they are on the day they come home. So pale and timid compared with our other ex-batt girls who have been with us more than year now. But two days in and they're already starting to learn what real chickens do from Gloria and Eva next door. And they all made it into bed in the Eglu on their second night (horrible on the first night when one insisted on sleeping on the floor of the run).

 

Unfortunately our newbies came with free red mite which I'm wondering is why one of them is still not so keen on going to bed. Poor ladies. Anyway, I thought I'd share some photos of our new girls - hope that's OK (would love to see everybody elses new ex-batts too).

 

 

 

[dancing cloud]

Aaww! Look how pale they are

 

But that last photo already has a hint of cheeky-chook about it There's definitely a little character getting ready to come out to play !

[Bramble]

Hello! Just thought I'd join in and say how wonderful ex-batts are. I'd never kept chooks (or birds of any kind) until ten weeks ago when I adopted my three little ex-batt girls (only wanted two really, but was told I should expect to lose one so it was best to have three, though all three are still with me). They were just terrified of everything when they first arrived (including the sky and sparrows flying over), but after a few days they settled down brilliantly, they're not even scared of broccolli any more!!!

We had the most lovely moment with them over the weekend when it was play time in the garden, "Tikka" found a daddy long legs and spent some little time chasing it round the garden, so lovely to watch (though not so lovely for poor daddy long legs who I'm afraid became an edible treat for Tikka).

I have to say, i did wonder if getting chooks was the right thing to do, I wondered if I would "bond" with them as I have with other pets, but absolutely no worries on that score I even slept downstairs on their first night in case they made any noise!

Hooray for ex-batts is all I can say!!!

[Cranfield Kate]

SophieMostly, that's EXACTLY what mine look like!

 

i'm a bit shocked actually that they came out with red mite, and I've read twice on here about chickens coming out of farms with lice on them. er, HELLO??? aren't they supposed to be sterile environments??? so not only are they caged but they're not protected from nasties?

 

our going to bed routine is a little, erm, rough around the egdes shall we say. one of them has got the hang of it but the other two need a little "encouragement". on the second night i think i left it a little late and dark to do the encouraging - they weren't going for it at all, and so had to pick them up one by one, take them out of the run, shut the run door, open up the back of the coop (I don't have an eglu), pop them in and then my flatmate had to keep them in there while i got the others. he did his best, poor love. but there was a lot of sqwaking and "oh my god how do i DO THIS!" - ing.

 

BUT two are roosting! which i find really great. but it does leave one on her own sleeping in the nest box. oh well, when they all move in with the existing girls, she can cosy up with them and the roosters can do their thing.

[Dolly]

I must stop reading this thread. I'm at work and have tears welling up and am sniffing as I type!

Well done to all of you who have rescued those poor creatures who deserve so much better.

One day I'll hopefully be able to join you and rescue some myself (after I've talked my DH round!)

[Trougher]

Finally got to grips with this photo lark! Here are my three ex-batts - as you can see, not in too bad condition. I was expecting them to be much worse when I collected them ten days ago. They are, in order, Lucky, Henrietta and Cleopatra. The final picture shows Lucky and Henrietta having dug a hole in the lawn to make a dustbath, with Cleo looking on - she's too lazy to dig a dustbath!

 

 

[Patricia W]

Lovely pictures! I can't let mine mix with the others for 6 weeks because we have a cockerel and they aren't strong enough to take his attention ( though he largely ignores my other ex-bats) so its lovely to see some free-ranging already.

 

 

Sophiemostly - I picked up 3 more ex-bats from the same rescue as you on Sunday and was also surprised about the red mite, but even more worried about the advice being given as to how to deal with it. Diatom alone on the birds isn't sufficient, as they were advising people at the rescue, (many were newbies) they didn't mention that its essential to treat the house for the next few weeks so the little critturs don't take up permanent residence. I've learnt the hard way!

 

I'm glad yours are all settling in. One of mine has a bad limp which I'm hoping is just bruising, but she's getting about Ok. They were so silent for the first couple of days but are now beginning to make that lovely crooning noise that my " older" ex-bats do. They had their first greens today and I left them looking rather bemused. But hopefully it won't be too long before they are cheeky and greedy!

Tricia

[dancing cloud]

By way of encouragement and as an indication of how fast they can become fully-fledged cheeky chooks, this was Sun when she first arrived last March, one of the worst I'd ever seen - the photo makes her look better than she did, as it hides how very pale and emaciated she was

 

 

and on her first ever free range a week later

 

 

and the same Sun 2 months later - you'd never think it was the same chook !

 

 

I would have taken a photo now, 18 months on, but she's moulting and looks like a turkey with no feathers on her head and no tail . Doesn't stop her being a very cheeky chicken though

[Mercedes55]

We've had our ex batts for nearly 3mths now and they are still feathering up, need to take some current pics. I can still remember how upset I felt when my OH came home with 4 of them and the sorry state they were in. We had one with a really bad limp and at one point wondered if she would survive as the other hens pecked at her a lot. However with a couple of weeks of using arnica cream on her leg she is now about 90% better and keeps up with all the others. Like many others we've always bought free range eggs before getting our ex batts and it makes me recoil when I see the cartons of battery farmed eggs in the supermarket and I'm often tempted to try and talk someone out of buying them

[Trougher]

What a difference in Sun! My goodness, she looked bad when you got her. She looks wonderful now. I'm so pleased for her.

 

I agree about eggs, I always paid through the nose for organic free range eggs. Now I don't have to!

[Peaches]

Great thread and fantastic pictures.

 

I've currently got a batch of ex-barns and found them to be not much better than the ex-batts when I collected them from bhwt, in fact they were very grey looking. Now they are much pinker and the feathers are growing back and even Jackie O who had a completely bald head is getting nicely feathered. The only noticeable difference between ex-barns and ex-batts is that my ex-batts were very weak in the leg and had to "learn" to roost and move about whereas the ex-barns were much more clued up about those matters.

 

I felt all teary the first time they dust bathed in the sun - they looked so contented and happy.

[the bradley bunch]

yes the first time i saw my ex-bats rolling around in a big 'dust bath for three' was the greatest feeling ever. they rolled their little eyes as they relaxed together and 'purred' in happiness

[dancing cloud]

When mine have seen the garden for the first time has always been a big moment, as they cannot see it from the yard their cubes are in and have to come through doors and look round the corner to see the full extent - usually they have eyes the size of saucers! Generally they have been a bit overawed and kept together near the walls until they feel brave, but in February Little Chicken saw the lawn for the first time, ran onto it, held her wings out to the sides and did a little skippy dance that was just pure joy .

 

Yes, I came over all emotional ...

[the bradley bunch]

in February Little Chicken saw the lawn for the first time, ran onto it, held her wings out to the sides and did a little skippy dance that was just pure joy .

 

Yes, I came over all emotional ...

 

the little skippy dances are the best! they're just made of excitement!