Most days are punctuated by triumphant clucks and staccato crows that follow the laying of an egg. Almost without exception, our hens lay in the straw-lined nest compartment in the coop. Apart from mid-winter, we’ve been blessed with two or more eggs a day from our four hens. Their breeding has programmed them to lay around 300 eggs a year; quite a feat when you consider that their wild ancestors would probably lay 5-6 eggs in a clutch before incubating them when breeding. The physical strain of such a high productivity can be immense. In the barren battery cage, the twin effect of not being able to exercise and the high calcium demands of profuse egg laying mean that osteoporosis and brittle bones afflicts all caged hens, leading to huge suffering. Our hens, along with their free range cousins, are of course free to exercise, something vital to both their behavioural well-being and their health.
Battery eggs from caged hens would have unappetisingly pale yolks if it wasn’t for the chemical colourant incorporated into their monotonous food ration. By contrast, our hens need no such artificial props to help them produce healthy-looking eggs. They have deep ochre or orange-coloured yolks that reflect the variety of their diet. At regular intervals, my wife Helen boxes up the eggs and distributes them amongst eager neighbours, friends and family. With yolks flavoured and coloured by the hens’ varied endeavour, we are now well used to getting comments back telling us that our hens lay the best eggs tasted; better even than commercial free range eggs!
Most of our eggs are given to people in our local community. Our son, Luke, enjoys one or two at the weekend for his breakfast. From time to time, Helen will have a bake-fest, resulting in the freezer being stuffed full of quiches and bakes of every description.
Helen’s mum, Anna Roberts, is now in her eighties. In the 1960s, Anna and her dairy farmer husband, Peter, set up Compassion in World Farming to campaign against the tide of factory farming that was sweeping the agricultural landscape. When three small girls were tucked up in bed, Anna and Peter would be in the back room of their country cottage churning out the latest campaign literature calling for a fair deal for hens and other farm animals. It seems that hens have a special place in Anna’s heart. And wanting to see them out of battery cages was a big motivation for their work. Encouraging people to choose free range eggs instead of eating the product of the battery was a big part of her life.
A decade into the 21st Century, Anna has little appetite and eats like a garden sparrow. There is one exception; when we prepare one of Helen’s home-laid egg quiches. Here, Anna seems to rediscover her appetite, eating every last crumb! It is wonderful to see her enjoying a good meal, particularly provided by our hens. It is a fitting way for them to give something back for all the hard work and sacrifice during those earlier years. Days when speaking out for farm animals was often seen as a cranky eccentricity; a far cry from the mainstream concern of consumers, companies and legislators that it now is, at least, in Europe. Without doubt, Anna has laid the foundations on which the modern movement for farm animal welfare is built; testimony to a compassionate heart, a strong will and a far-reaching vision of how the world should be.
You can read previous instalments of ‘Living with hens’ here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.
What is the Cholesterol levels in these eggs, are they are normal , please give some details on this matter. – thank you.