[hillfooter]

Rant. Buy POL pure breeds from a recommened breeder and put the cash you would have spent on vets bills / heartache into campaigning against the awful practice of battery / caged hens. Preserve the beautiful diversity of fowl we have rather than mop up after the battery poultry industry who like to put things like "when our hens have finished laying they will be retired to loving homes in the country". 

Pure / cross breds are healthier birds - and they all have thier own characters. Some will like this and some will like that. But they will all be special and you can be thankful that you are giving them a good home. They won't produce as many eggs as hybrids (but will produce many as opposed to the batteries) but will lay over a longer period of time. You can be pleased that you are continuing a breed rather than an individual hen, which in the long term is more important.

I must say although I respect people who rehome battery hens I have mixed feelings about the practise.  When I started keeping chickens over 10 years ago few people kept backyard flocks and then it was mostly in the country and the chx were purebreeds or crosses.  I rarely heard of illnesses and never had any problems. 

Since the practise of rehoming ex batts in back gardens has proliferated and chx are shipped round the country to rehome them, ill health and infections amongst flocks seems an evermore present problem.  I had my first case of mycoplasma (CRD) two years ago after an introduction of new hybrid hens not ex batts.  Quarentine didn't show up any issue.  Last year I didn't introduce any new birds and so far 2010 and 11 to date have been illness free.  I can't say that the proliferation of ex batts being kept by novices and indiscriminate breeding is causing an increase in disease but I suspect so.

I've a lot more sympathy for the argument for supporting indigenous pure breeds which are in danger of being displaced and extinct by the evermore exotic hybrids available to the hobbyist.

I don't know what proportion of ex batts get rehoused but it must be a very small proportion of the total which go for slaughter each year.  Despite my natural sympathy for the birds which have had a miserable life in  battery units I'm not convinced that rehoming charities have a good handle on the health risk to the general chx population and that the practice is regulated to appropriate standards.

If anyone knows what regulations if any apply to this practise I'd be interested to hear?

HF

[helens-hens]

Rant. Buy POL pure breeds from a recommened breeder and put the cash you would have spent on vets bills / heartache into campaigning against the awful practice of battery / caged hens. Preserve the beautiful diversity of fowl we have rather than mop up after the battery poultry industry who like to put things like "when our hens have finished laying they will be retired to loving homes in the country". 

Pure / cross breds are healthier birds - and they all have thier own characters. Some will like this and some will like that. But they will all be special and you can be thankful that you are giving them a good home. They won't produce as many eggs as hybrids (but will produce many as opposed to the batteries) but will lay over a longer period of time. You can be pleased that you are continuing a breed rather than an individual hen, which in the long term is more important.

I must say although I respect people who rehome battery hens I have mixed feelings about the practise.  When I started keeping chickens over 10 years ago few people kept backyard flocks and then it was mostly in the country and the chx were purebreeds or crosses.  I rarely heard of illnesses and never had any problems. 

Since the practise of rehoming ex batts in back gardens has proliferated and chx are shipped round the country to rehome them, ill health and infections amongst flocks seems an evermore present problem.  I had my first case of mycoplasma (CRD) two years ago after an introduction of new hybrid hens not ex batts.  Quarentine didn't show up any issue.  Last year I didn't introduce any new birds and so far 2010 and 11 to date have been illness free.  I can't say that the proliferation of ex batts being kept by novices and indiscriminate breeding is causing an increase in disease but I suspect so.

I've a lot more sympathy for the argument for supporting indigenous pure breeds which are in danger of being displaced and extinct by the evermore exotic hybrids available to the hobbyist.

I don't know what proportion of ex batts get rehoused but it must be a very small proportion of the total which go for slaughter each year.  Despite my natural sympathy for the birds which have had a miserable life in  battery units I'm not convinced that rehoming charities have a good handle on the health risk to the general chx population and that the practice is regulated to appropriate standards.

If anyone knows what regulations if any apply to this practise I'd be interested to hear?

HF

Hi HF. Could this partly be due to the growth and vastly wider availability of the internet allowing even back yard owners (such as myself) to contribute to forums such as this, discussing the various ailments their birds may have, something which would not have been possible 10 years ago?

Though there certainly has been an explosion is hen keeping is it also partly the case that we are hearing more about ailments etc now, because of the resources available to us?

[Casey76]

The proliferation of MG is due to the increasing number of "hobby" keepers.  At one time, once MG was seen in a flock, keepers would cull the whole flock, let the ground rest and replace after a suitable time frame.  Most hobby keepers see their hens as pets and prefer to treat the illness rather than cull.

However, once infected, they become carriers, and can infect any new stock being brought into the flock, or unwittingly sold to unsuspecting buyers, therefore transferring MG to another flock.  MG therefore almost becomes common, whereas before it was rare.

Birds who have shown symptoms should never be bred from as MG has vertical transmission from hen to egg.

[hillfooter]

Yes helens-hens, this is of course a very good point and certainly when people post it's usually to ask for help with a problem so certainly that creates an impression that sickness is more widespread than it is.

However partly I'm basing my impressions, and that's what they are I hasten to say, on my experiences. I rarely thought about illness and kept chx for 8 years without seeing a sick hen. My impression of the issues that get flagged on this site are that they are dominated by problems with ex batts, though of course that could be that more novices are getting ex batts today.  It might be interesting if someone can craft a good poll which could address some of these issues.  The difficult bit is designing a good poll.  Most of the ones posted are badly flawed.

The scary bit is that many of the major health scares such as BSE, bird flu as well as animal epidemics like foot and mouth have come about in relatively well regulated scenarios whereas industrial scale rehoming of battery hens is as far as I know unregulated and unresearched.

The poultry egg production industry is only interested in the health and welfare of young birds during their first laying season.  The hens are stuffed full of vaccines and medications to allow intensive carefully controlled environments.  Industry vets only ever understand and treat at the flock level and are experienced in assessing the economics of flock treatment not individual birds treatment.  

The rehoming charities are motivated by compassionate welfare concerns mostly.  In my experience  the people at the sharp end of distribution have no knowledge of the health implications of vaccinated and potentially immune suppressed birds being let loose in an uncontrolled environment.  I doubt the actual vaccines and medications which have been used on the birds are even known.  I know charities offer health advice for new keepers and no doubt that they do a reasonable job but I'm talking at a higher level of risk.  These birds are given to novices with no experience who are supported by a veterinary network with little experience of hobbyist poultry.  They are either argicultural flock treaters or caged bird exotic specialists.  

It seems to me like a system which is loaded with risk and wide open to potential disaster.

HF

[helens-hens]

Hi HF. I do uderstand the points you are making.

For back garden keepers it is almost like we are relearning skills & knowledge that were were far more common place back in the earlier part of the twentieth century when it was not uncommon to keep a few hens for eggs and the 'pot'. I guess this is a similar case for vets though I wonder if they would have been consulted so readily back then when keepers may have attempted to deal with problems themselves.

It would be interesting if some sort of poll could be set up to get stats. I must admit thinking of posts I have read recently of ex batt ailments seem to relate to problems caused by the way they have been bred and the dreadful environment they were kept in e.g. being prone to prolapses.

I initially wanted to keep ex batts but decided to start with a couple of POLs to have a gentler learning curve - I must admit I have found this worrying enough at times! I would still like to think that I will have a couple at some point.

[joyfull]

The problem is often people only post on here when they have a problem and the rest of the time we don't here anything.

[andreadon]

The problem is often people only post on here when they have a problem and the rest of the time we don't here anything.

that's very true, joy - you'd think there was a high proportion of hen keepers having health problems, when in actual fact, it's so uncommon.
of our 6 hens,
Monica (POL) got killed by a fox
Sandra (ex batt) was fine with no poorlies until she was about ready to die, and she went downhill very quickly
Mary (POL) had a problem from birth
Jessica (POL) got a tumour, but before that was very well, and went to the vet's once in her life before the tumour
Tina (POL) was a runt, and had coccydiosis
Rita (ex batt) was fine for about 6 months after release, then got eggbound andrecurring problems from that
Erica (POL) had a few bouts of poorliness that were treated by Baytril
Pamela (POL) has moulted, and had one round of Baytril.

Monica, Erica and Jessica were bought together in Jan 2008, Jessica died last summer
Erica's still alive and well.
Rita and Sandra were rescued summer 2008 - Sandra died april 2009, and rita last year.
Mary, Tina and Pamela were all POL in may 2009, and Mary died within a couple of months, Tina died last summer and Pamela's still around.

That's just a demonstration that they're not all problems, but when there is a problem, it tends to be cleared up easily with Baytril, just like humans with pencillin!
but we generally post more when there's a problem.

[andreadon]

that's possibly 8 hens! 

we never had more than 6 at a time!

[cornishgirl]

Thanks Hillfooter for expanding so eloquently on the points I made. I was expecting to log this evening and be pillored!

[OscarInnes]

Thanks everyone for the advice - think i will not attempt ex batts just yet!