Egg-laying hens are killed after just 18 months. This charity gives them a brighter future

Could your next pet be a chicken rescued from an egg farm?

Transcript

00:00 However much time they have with you, they've got to experience what it's like to actually be a chicken

00:05 and enjoy life which they didn't before they came to you.

00:08 Hi, I'm Julia Davis. I'm an impact investor and environmental campaigner and I refoam chickens.

00:15 So I like refoaming chickens because I think it's a really great way of getting cruelty-free eggs.

00:23 I think they're really great fun. If you're going to have a pet that isn't a cat or dog,

00:28 to be honest, chickens are really good.

00:30 My understanding is that chickens where production are kept for about a year,

00:35 after that they'll just be killed. So whilst we banned factory chickens,

00:40 what we now have is free-range chickens and we have barn chickens.

00:44 And so what has been set is the amount of space which each chicken has to have,

00:48 but it's really not that much at all, certainly not for barn chickens and actually for free-range.

00:53 Obviously there are some amazing free-range producers out there producing eggs in lower numbers,

00:58 but most eggs in the UK are produced in very, very high density of chickens units.

01:04 So they will have had a life of being in a pretty confined space.

01:10 Even if they were in a large free-range flock, they would still have been,

01:14 you know, in amongst a huge number of birds and so that would be very stressful for them.

01:21 And so, you know, the time when they come to me or any of the other beehomers,

01:26 that, you know, they get to enjoy the pleasure of being in a nice space.

01:29 I find them really funny. They're quite daft. I will say that I understand where the saying

01:34 bird brain comes from because they do really daft things, but it's amusing.

01:38 It's funny and there's nothing nicer on a sunny day,

01:41 seeing them out in the garden making dust baths.

01:44 It looks so pleasurable and they look like they're having an absolutely amazing time.

01:48 And of course, they don't get to do that when they're in a big shed,

01:51 even if they get to move around a little bit.

01:52 The state of the chickens when you beehome them will really depend on

01:57 the density in which they've been kept.

01:59 So you do get some chickens that are very bare with feathers and live in a pretty poor state.

02:03 And that is from them being in really dense numbers and pecking each other.

02:08 Most of them recover really well.

02:11 The feathers will start growing back relatively quickly.

02:15 And after a couple of months, you have beautiful, healthy, buddy-brother pens again.

02:19 So yeah, I think they're brilliant.

02:22 And what I would absolutely say to anyone with kids,

02:26 if your children are nagging you to get a rabbit or a guinea pig,

02:29 get chickens instead because you know what?

02:32 Your children will basically tire of those pets within a relatively short period of time.

02:37 You will be the one that's cleaning out those animals.

02:40 You'll be the one that's feeding them.

02:41 And at least for chickens, you get some nice tasty eggs back.

02:44 And the eggs do taste so much better than anything you get from a shop.

02:48 [Music]