When I'm not needed anymore!

(de Nederlandse versie van het verhaal van deze moederdieren is hier te lezen)

These broiler breeder hens were rescued by a couple of animal lovers in the Netherlands. This is what they wrote about Bitchy, Fluffy, Bob, Elvis, Peter Steele , Kneus, Opa'tje, Captain Jack and Bijbal:

"It was the beginning of March 2010 and it had been freezing. Friends of ours were walking with their dogs when they found a group of chickens in the grass. Three were already dead, while the rest were only just alive.

They took the seven survivors home where we picked up three of them to take care of. They were in a very bad condition, had almost no feathers on their body and they could hardly walk. They smelt terrible.

We seperated a bit of the garden with chicken mesh and the very same day bought a chicken coop on the internet. We hurried to our local pet shop for essential information on how to keep chickens and, of course, food and bowls. Once everything was sorted, the ladies could check out their new residence. They walked around really slowly and sometimes they fell over. It was such a pathetic sight.

But after a few days they made great progress and now they're the most beautiful chickens in the world, scratching around happily in the sand and running without falling over.

A few weeks ago (April 2010), we found another bunch of chickens dumped in the same place, nine of them drowned and dead in the ditch. Three were still alive. Again we took them with us and found a new home for them with acquaintances.

We reported everything to the police and the RSPCA here in Holland. They said they would look into it but after two weeks the chicken corpses were still in the ditch. Very unpleasant!

So we regularly went to the dump site and found that more chickens had been dumped since. Some were still alive. We immediately phoned the animal ambulance/rescue to ask them if they could pick them up. Because I was a bit suspicious, I went back that evening and discovered that they were still there. We called the animal ambulance/rescue again to ask why they had not been picked up. They could not tell me why nor when they would get picked up. We got angry and I said I would arrange it myself.

I subsequently contacted the police and the Council. In the end I told the Council that I was going to pick up the chickens myself because they otherwise would not survive the night. The Council was then going to arrange for the animal ambulance to pick up the chickens from me the next day. In the dark, I collected the chickens and put them in our barn for the night. Unfortunately for one hen our help was too late. That evening I was called back by the animal ambulance to say that they no longer would come to collect the hens because now I had tampered with the evidence!

Now I was really annoyed! The next day I grabbed my pen and wrote a letter of complaint to the animal rescue. I bet that if it had been puppies they would have come straight away. Eventually my friend and I decided to keep the chickens and again we bought a hen house. We put all the ladies together and hoped for the best.

We're now a number of weeks later and the ladies (apart from two) are doing fine. They are growing back their feathers and look well-fed. We even have to limit their food otherwise they would eat continually. We took one chicken to the vet with a swelling on her leg and another has an infection of her eyes (one is totally closed): she is now kept apart and is on antibiotics.

The nice thing is that the first "batch" gets on very well with the second "batch". So we wouldn't have had to buy the second coop after all. They now use it for laying their eggs.  Some of them are laying an egg every day!

In the meantime we've contacted the local Party of the Animals and they are going to raise this story at a Council meeting. I am very curious to see what comes out of it! I have also been in contact with the animal ambulance of Tiel, and they have promised me that if there are any more chickens I can call them and they will take care of them."

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