As a child, I grew up around lots of "pets"; we had hens, rabbits, pigeons, magpies, rooks, geese, owls and even a pig. As a parent, we've never really had any "pets" for our kids - despite enjoying them immensely as a child myself. So, a few weeks back I got in touch with Little Hen Rescue (LHR) at Flordon near Newton Flotman and arranged to collect a dozen hens from their next batch. They're all ex-battery hens and in a pretty poor state as you would imagine. You can read about their plight and general condition on the site . After a couple of weekends knocking up a coop and a pen out of stuff I had lying around, off we went to collect the hens.

LHR were a lot better organised than I expected TBH and we turned up at 9am on a Sunday morning, bought some Layers Mash from them (the hens don't recognise "proper" food at first!), handed over £1.50 per hen (LHR have to buy the hens from the factory and of course have running costs to cover) and collected our hens from the well laid out pens. The volunteers there are really enthusiastic, friendly and helpful and there's plenty of advice available to those that want it. 20 minutes to get there, 30 minutes collecting and another 20 minutes to get home.

From then on, it's quite fascinating to see the speed of the hen's recovery. They're predominantly bald when you get them and utterly clueless with regard to all the normal hen behaviours like roosting on perches, scratching around, dust bathing etc - even eating!! It's amazing how quickly they get the hang of "real life" though. Ours wouldn't come out of the coop by themselves for the first couple of days - and certainly didn't think to go back in to roost at night!  You have to give them a bit of a helping hand for the first few days but 3 weeks on and they're feathering up nicely, scratching, dust bathing and generally amusing the children and us They're also now happily recognising our food waste as "food" and eating that up as well as the bought / processed stuff which makes it all a bit more economical.

The crucial question... Eggs? Well, ours are not laying much at the moment but a friend who collected 5 hens at the same time is getting 4 or 5 eggs every day. We're only getting 1! That said, ours seem to have put all their energy into feathering and fattening up instead. Hopefully once that's done we'll be getting our fill (and more!)...

Overall, the costs are relatively low, they're great for kids (and adults too ), you get fresh eggs and you're giving an animal that has been consigned to the waste bin an extended, natural and healthy life. Can't be bad!

A couple of links in case you're interested:

http://littlehenrescue.co.uk - to find out about the hens
http://www.darrowfarm.co.uk/ - for supplies

If anyone has got any advice on other places to buy food locally or general hen care advice, please add your comments below...