Chickens, dumb animals, right? Queenie was “retired” from her commercial egg laying barn in May this year, just 4 months ago.

Watching her get used to her new free range surrounding has been a fantastic experience.

This morning Queenie jumped into a tree, jump down (from what must have felt like a great height to a little hen), literally squealed with joy and repeated the process 4 more times. She was genuinely giddy about her new discovery.

And then I thought, when was the last time that I did something just because it made me joyful?

So today, I’m going to be more like Queenie, and do something just because it makes my heart sing.

Treat time! All the girls love a bit of long-stemmed broccoli in the evening and will jump up next to me on the bench to have first dibs.

However, broccoli isn’t easy for a chicken to eat, it can’t be gobbled up in a single peck. Sweetpea hops up and allows me hold onto the stem whilst she pulls off the tasty florets at the top then moves onto the leaves.

Gloria on the other hand is far less trusting, she grabs the broccoli straight from the bag and runs off with a full stem, then get frustrated that she can’t really get enough purchase to eat much of it. Eventually she get’s utterly disheartened with the whole task and wanders off.

Life lesson, if someone offers you a helping hand with something, then take it, there are no special prizes for going it alone in life.

This morning I was hand feeding the girls (I know, but they’re ex commercial hens and I love to spoil them).

Because I only have the two hands I was feeding Queenie on one side (the littlest and one of the new girls, and Gloria on the other (the smallest of my older girls).

Gloria was so fixated on seeing what Queenie was getting, rather than her own handful of (identical) food, that she left her breakfast portion of pellets and leapt over to Queenies side to try and muscle in on her share. Princess Layer (the greedy security guard of the flock) saw her opportunity and polished off Gloria’s breakfast lickity split. So poor Gloria lost out on her hand-served breakfast this morning.

Life lesson, focus on what’s in front of you, your challenges, dreams and goals. Focusing on what others have or want will just distract you from your own path and could end up losing you your ultimate goal.

First blog – why?

When my husband and I moved into our first owned house together, we both knew that what would make our house a home was a dog. We researched and talked to friends and concluded that an ex-racing greyhound would suit our lifestyle perfectly. (They are built for speed not stamina and can sleep up to 18 hours a day).

Enter Amber, our sweet black and white grey, we fell in love with her and the breed and over the next 5 years we created our own precious pack of 6 black ex racing greyhounds. At this point the husband really put his foot down and said, no more!

But the genuine pleasure I get from adopting an animal who needs help and protecting, nurturing and loving them is not yet satiated. Hence graduating from greyhounds to rescuing ex commercial hens.

Commercial layers are kept in varying levels of welfare for about 17 months, after that statistically they are less likely to produce an egg a day and therefore are no longer economically viable. The lucky ones are rehomed, the rest are slaughtered for animal feed.

My first four girls arrived on my birthday in 2019, best gift ever! Despite our research online and reading heaps of books we were woefully unprepared. The girls looked almost oven ready, with huge bald patches and an initial nervousness about everything.

However, with a great deal of support from some amazing online groups we all muddled through our first year, the girls regrew their feathers, gained confidence very quickly and really started to show their own personalities. I learnt to recognise warning signs that something wasn’t quite right.

We lost our beautiful Chickpea just short of a year after we’d rehomed them, she developed a neurological condition and blindness so unfortunately she had to be put to sleep. The husband agreed that replacing her with a single hen was unfair (chickens can be bullies) so two newbies arrived in early April this year. (A full description of each of the girls can be found in the “about” section).

The covid lockdown was tough for everyone, in my case the vast majority of our workforce was furloughed, but as an owner managed business the key to survival was controlling the cashflow, which fell to me as finance director. I put myself under a huge amount of pressure and felt personally responsible for all 160 employees. The dogs pick up on emotions and the atmosphere in the house wasn’t calming, peaceful or relaxing, so in order to maintain my mental wellbeing I spent more and more time outdoors with the chickens, (thank goodness the weather was decent most of the time).

The chickens had no idea that there was a global pandemic going on, they simply didn’t care. As long as there was plenty of space to roam, fresh water and food they were not just okay, they were happy, they were joyful even! My little feathered chums, who had grown up in fairly dire circumstances, seemed to find a huge amount of pleasure in life. And I started to learn from them………….