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




May I introduce to you:  Kakel and Katootje. You might already have read about Kakel here.

Katootje is an ex battery-hen. The past 10 months she lived in a battery cage.
It is estimated that over 60% of the world’s eggs are produced in battery cages, including over three quarters in the EU.

14 months ago when Katootje hatched in an incubator she was put on a conveyor belt where all the chicks were roughly sorted by a chick sexer. The males were separated from the hens. The males are useless so they were immediately gassed or crushed alive. How this happens you can see here. Then Katootje's beak was trimmed without anaesthetic, possibly with a
hot blade machine
. This is to prevent the hens from injuring one another when sitting in their cages.

Katootje then went to a breeding farm where she  would remain for 16 weeks. After those 16 weeks, she was captured and transported to the battery farm. A battery farm can be described as a very long building with long rows of wired cages, three or more floors above each other. The animals live with up to eight hens in small cages, which gives each chicken a space of  less than one A4 sheet of paper.

The only thing they can do is eat or lay eggs. They can not spread their wings. So they get bored and peck each other. They lay their eggs on the wire floor. Their feed usually contains antibiotics. To encourage laying their biorhythm is disturbed by giving them extra light.

Battery cage chickens live about 12 months in a battery farm. During that time, they lay about 350 eggs. After a year egg production decreases, which is not profitable anymore for the farmer, so they are removed from their cages and
crammed into crates (how this is done you can read in the story of Ann)  to be transported to an abattoir. There they are killed and end up as soup. The only natural light that these chickens ever see is during their last trip from the battery cage to the slaughterhouse. Research has shown that the amount of stress hormones rises with the lack of sunlight.  So these chickens live in misery all of their lives.

Today,
24 June 2010, the battery farm where Katootje stayed is ready to be cleared. Katootje's  work is done. Today she and her 39.999 companions are going for slaughter. And tomorrow the battery cages are going to be filled with 40.000 new chickens.

But Katootje was lucky, because we were looking for a new girlfriend for Kakel, the broiler we found at the side of the
road a few weeks ago. And so we   retrieved Katootje from her battery cage and put her with Kakel in the garden.

For the very first time in her miserable life she felt solid ground under her feet. She felt the wind in her face. She saw the sun for the first time. It was the first night that she slept on a bed of straw. From now on her daily rhythm will be determined by the sun and not by artificial light. For the first time she will be able to scratch in the earth to look for worms and snails, to hunt for insects and bite from leaves. For the first time she can take a dust bath and spread her wings. For the first time she will be able to behave like a chicken.

And Kakel? He thinks it is all OK. He is making a big fuss of his new mate, and follows her around on his short deformed legs. He picks her feathers a bit. Katootje does not mind: she is used to featherpecking from her cellmates. But Kakel means no harm. I think all  he wants is her to be his friend ...

In a perfect world Katootje will recover as quickly and as well as Kakel did.  But Katootje is very weak and skinny.  The past 14 months have taken their toll. For us it will be very exciting the coming days and weeks, to see how she gets better. We must wait and hope ...

It is poultry that suffers most in factory farming, both egg-laying hens and broilers. But we can all contribute to a better future for our chicken friends. Please do not buy cage eggs and any products which include these eggs!

Next time you are doing your shopping, please think of this remarkable chicken Katootje. You will save many many miserable lives.
 


back to poultry

                             Katootje after 4 months of TLC