Charlotte, Heidi, Greta, Isolde and Olga
young chickens from barn rearing
From the perspective of Gut Aiderbichl
(written by Gisela Pschenitschnig)
Edeltraud (deceased), Charlotte, Heidi, Greta, Isolde and Olga must have been clucking all day long. Did you know that a chicken clucks when it has laid an egg? Until the hen has found a quiet place to lay her eggs, she clucks. It withdraws from the group and looks for a suitable place to lay the egg.
Constant egg laying is a real burden for the laying hens. In factory farming, the hens have very little space and enormous stress. No wonder that some chickens living in factory farming do not even reach the age of two or three. They are already physically and mentally exhausted after about a year.
They wanted to avoid the new vaccination
The farm where the laying hens come from would have had to have its animals vaccinated after a good year. This was too costly and Charlotte, Heidi, Greta, Isolde and Olga, for example, would have been slaughtered. An animal-loving lady rescued the chickens and brought them to Gut Aiderbichl in Iffeldorf.
In this respect, the ladies were lucky - they were able to leave their existence in the barn and now run happily and freely around the farm in Iffeldorf.
Floor rearing of hens
When many of us were still children and were able to spend the vacations with our grandparents in the countryside, we would run after the chickens in the garden and have fun. The eggs were collected and stored or cooked.
A little something has become a huge egg producer. So-called laying hens supply the population with eggs from laying hens.
A distinction is made between three types of laying hen husbandry: barn, free-range and organic.
Floor rearing accounts for around 59% of the market share in Austria. The hens spend their lives in the barn. Here are the feeding facilities, nests and raised perches. Stamp number 2 identifies barn eggs.
Free-range eggs have the stamp number 1 on the shell. These barn-raised hens have access to the outdoors. Some free-range hens have a "winter garden" in winter where they can run around, peck, scratch and take sand baths.
Organic eggs have the number 0 on the shell. This means that organic hens have a barn and a run. The difference between free-range and organic farming is the space available for the animals, the groups are smaller and there are no more than 3,000 hens in the barn. The pullets come from organic farms, regular organic inspections are carried out and compliance with the regulations is checked.
In the AMA quality seal program, all forms of cage farming have been banned in Austria without exception since 2001. There were so many chickens in the cages that it was impossible for them to move around.
Let's hope that Charlotte, Heidi, Greta, Isolde and Olga can spend a stress-free, happy life at Gut Aiderbichl in Iffeldorf. Let's hope that the happiness they are allowed to experience will make their lives last a little longer.
The consumer can control the suffering or welfare of the animals. Let us hope for attentive consumers, otherwise animal suffering cannot be stopped.
Simply to think and rethink. Yours sincerely, Gisela
Everything great that happened in the world first took place in the imagination of man.
~Astrid Lindgren
