Chickens Helena and Heidi
Helena and Heidi in search of a large flock of chickens
The chickens Helena (5 years old) and Heidi (5 years old) were looking for a new home because the owner no longer wanted to expand her chicken flock. She also feared that the two chickens would become lonely. She also wanted to prevent one chicken from having to live alone in the garden if one of the two chickens died.
A fresh hen's egg every day
Private chicken keeping has become increasingly popular in recent years, whether in the city or in the countryside. The cheerful clucking of chickens can be heard from many gardens and owners are delighted to have fresh eggs from their own feathered friends in the garden.Chickens are often so trusting that you can stroke them and hold them on your lap. So it’s no wonder that hobby chicken ownersare often just as attached to their animals as dog and cat owners are to their four-legged favourites. In any case, Helena and Heidi are very trusting and people-friendly, can be picked up and love to be stroked and cuddled.
How old do chickens get in the garden and in factory farming?
How old chickens get can only be answered very vaguely. As with us humans, there are some that live to a ripe old age, but there are also some that die at a young age. In hobby animal husbandry, it can be assumed that chickens live to be around 5-7 years old.
In commercial factory farming, chickens usually don’t even live to be two years old. Here, the laying performance of the laying hybrids is additionally increased by external factors. The hens are driven to peak performance thanks to extended daytime phases with the help of artificial light and stables air-conditioned to the ideal temperature. The chicken thus becomes an egg producer and its entire life is optimised to produce as many, particularly large chicken eggs as possible. Such top performance costs the chickens so much energy that they are already exhaustedafter 12 – 14 months and their laying performance drops. As the animals are then no longer profitable for the farm, they are killed and replaced with younger chickens.
Gut Aiderbichl and its experience with hens and cockerels
The number of animals being handed in is increasing due to ill-considered purchases of chickens and cockerels.
At Gut Aiderbichl in Deggendorf, the new home of Helena and Heidi, lives a flock of former laying hens that have been “discarded”. Little by little, they grew back a beautiful, thick coat of feathers and became happy clucking hens that can spend their performance-free retirement at Gut Aiderbichl.
Unfortunately, we have noticed that giving away and privately purchasing bantams, silkies and cockerels has become a “modern GO”. However, keeping these feathered animals becomes an absolute “no-go” for the neighbourhood when the cockerel – for example in a still deeply asleep housing estate – calls its hens for breakfast from 4am
Helena and Heidi spend a peaceful retirement at Gut Aiderbichl in Deggendorf
The two hens are happy and lay the occasional egg. They cluck happily with the others, dig holes in the ground on hot days and sleep cosily and protected in the chicken coops.
No one minds the crowing of the many cockerels in the morning and everyone smiles when a rooster lets out a loud “Kickerickickiiiii” during the day. It’s just in the nature of hens and roosters to cluck and crow. At Gut Aiderbichl, the animals are allowed to live with all their instincts and habits and simply be who they are: noisy or quiet fellow creatures.
If you hear a bird chirping, then life has just created a perfect moment.
– Unknown
From: Gisela Pschenitschnig, Gut Aiderbichl
