A Joy of Sharing Hens and Their Eggs Within a Small Community.

As I was clearing gutters one February afternoon the fox was lurking round the yard. Several times I shooed him off using ripe language and evil threats. When it was essential that I leave I put the hens inside the barn. Or rather I tried to. The hitherto weak and compliant birds were insistent that they would not be put inside - ever again - during daylight. I'd catch one put her inside a loose box, turn around to get one of her friends and, with an indignant squawk, she was over the stable door and back out in the world of freedom. It was farcical. With the clock ticking and my need to be elsewhere imperative I left them to their fate. On my return three hours later there was not one hen, not a trace of a feather and an overwhelming silence. I wept copiously.

Next we re-homed some hens and a glorious cockerel named Ringo - this time in our back garden. It was more secure with just one boundary backing on to open farmland. These girls were much more stand-offish, and Ringo was huge, but skittish. Whilst we were out having lunch with my parents the birds all disappeared. This time the whole family wept.

The only solution to avoiding the heartbreak was to ramp up our approach to hen keeping so we invested in a simple electric fencing system and got in touch with Jane Howarth at The Battery Hen Welfare Trust. I am deeply impressed by Jane's commitment she shows in her work with the farmers who, driven only by consumer demand for cheap food, rear these creatures in such debilitating circumstances. Jane and I talked over several coffees about how hens used to live in everyone's backyard, about how the women's role as nurturer and provider had been usurped by the perceived need for financial wealth over personal harmony.

Last November we took in 10 of Jane's ex-batts, they came to us full of fear and lacking any spirit. I always use Verm-X to help get the hens to the best possible health, its worked wonders for me and no egg withdrawal is a bonus! Once 'the girls' had regrown their feathers they began laying eggs like there was no tomorrow. We were being over run and my boiled, scrambled, fried, omelette, quiche repertoire was becoming exhausted and the family were begging for something else to eat.

Just after Christmas on the back of a good sized stiff envelope, that had previously contained a calendar, my son and I crafted an 'Eggs for Sale' sign and put it in our window. That same week Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall had been highlighting the plight of the battery hen on TV. We live opposite a small estate of houses.

Within hours many of our neighbours were asking us if we could supply them with eggs. One of them told us her Grandad had always kept hens, she'd grown up having chickens at her feet, and they had always found supermarket eggs lacking in taste - she wanted to take a dozen a week from us. Another family wanted to keep hens but their garden was too small, another family made an order for a dozen a week and offered to save their kitchen scraps for us to feed the hens.

It became abundantly clear that all of these families would keep hens if they had the space or the time but had neither. So we came up with the Community H-enterprise project. We are fortunate enough to have a large-ish garden and I have the time to tend to the 'girls' so in March we took on fostering 10 more hens on behalf of our neighbours.

Our younger neighbours will be invited to pick their own hen from the new batch and name her. The children will be encouraged to collect eggs, feed the girls and will be offered the opportunity to clean out the hen house. When we are away the hens will be cared for by members of the Community H-enterprise. We are recycling kitchen scraps from several neighbours and boiling up a foul smelling brew twice a week, which the hens love. The spent bedding creates wonderful compost for our vegetable patch. We are reducing food miles and packaging by producing this staple food so locally and we are constantly re-using our egg boxes. We are able to supply eggs to our neighbours at a price that beats battery eggs sold in the supermarket - we cover our costs, our neighbours save money and we all get to share in the pleasure of watching an ex-battery hen transform herself from a sad, bald, abused chicken to a fully golden feathered, plump, cheeky, adorable 'person'. But perhaps the even more rewarding aspect is the sense of how a small community can, with just a little communication and co-operation come together and create a simple solution to a significant food production issue.

The Community H-enterprise allows everyone who participates to help make a positive difference. The ex-battery hens get a life, the consumer gets fresh, healthy food and knows precisely where it comes from, and gets the eggs at a better price than that offered by the supermarkets, the children get closer to the source of their food, we recycle more of our food waste as a community, and we, as a family, get enriched compost to help grow our vegetables and, of course, the sheer pleasure of having hens bless our lives every single day.