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Battery Hen Welfare Trust

“

Working to inspire a Free Range Future”

Registered Charity No: 1109060

Dear SupportersI’m an optimist by nature preferring tosee a glass half full rather than half empty. However, even my brightvision for the future of the egg industryhas recently been challenged. As eggproducers face some of the toughestchoices yet and I get on my soapboxfor the first time – indulge me – I’llexplain that the welfare of hens andhealth of the UK industry is in our hands more than ever. The BHWThas always held dear its claim to careabout the egg producers as well asthe hens themselves, in our view it’simpossible to separate the two, and inthis issue I’ll give you a good exampleof why it’s so important to supportrather than condemn. And, much as I’d like to spout aboutrights for hens and support for Britishfarmers, you’ll be pleased to hear thisissue has all the usual fun items too!Not least the results of our BHWTEx-Bat Beauty Contest with our winning luscious layer preening her Sunday best feathers as she takes thetitle. Prepare yourselves for some of the usual red carpet meets flashingcameras meets celeb with whoppingego shenanigans! Good grief.We’re also delighted to announce thelong overdue return of our Eggsellence Award and have theusual crop of lovelies in our Galleryalong with more of your heart warmingstories.Let’s hope we and all our featheredfriends enjoy a long, lazy, hazysummer of warmth and sunshine –would be nice wouldn’t it.Janex

Newsletter No 19

www.bhwt.org.ukPhone: 01769 580310Email: info@bhwt.org.ukNorth Parks, Chulmleigh, Devon, EX18 7EJ

2009

Before trekking off to report from Iran Catherine Nixey wrote an excellent upbeat article about the girls for the

Times Magazine

in March and Helena from the BBC, who has some of our ex-bats, was there at the re-launchof our Eggsellence Award in Kent – you’ll hear more about that later.Three positive stories, written factually but with great understanding and care.We also had slots on BBC Radio Northants and Cumbria;then Adele went live on air on BBC Radio Lancs - whenshe explained how as a general rule she picked up 360hens at a time, the presenter commented on her tremendous strength and needless to say the gigglesensued; thankfully she did manage to regain decorum!Sarah Joseph, editor of the Muslim lifestyle magazine, Emel, adopted some of our girls from Tracey Longhurstin February and produced a really warm, well balanced piece for the magazine. Sarah also recounted her experiences of ex-bats on her regular “Pause for Thought” slot on

Terry Wogan’s Show

on BBC Radio 2;reaching 8.2 million listeners in the process. Here is a small excerpt from her piece:

“They had all grouped together and were obviously bewildered. Our seven year olddaughter, with tears rolling down her cheeks, took me aside. “I don’t think I can do this,” she cried. Some gentle and encouraging words later we found a hen that wasn’t too baldfor her to rescue. Our son chose a hen that had only one eye, “I doubt anyone will wantto give her a home.” Our nine year old daughter was matter of fact: “I’ll take any hens,” she said firmly, “They all need a home.”

It made me tingle to read about such caring children and what hope for the future.

Working with journalists is always double edged and contains a high riskelement. They love a story that sells and that usually means a bit of sensationalism as a vital ingredient. Hmm, I don’t like sensationalism; itcauses all sorts of problems and of course battery hens provide just theright emotive platform to maximize shock value. It made it all the morerewarding then to work with three journalists recently, all of whom entirely respected the sensitive issuessurrounding the caged egg industry and all of whom worked closely with me to ensure that both respect andbalance were achieved.

Finally

, Home Farmer

, a magazine aimed at the growing number of people who are looking for a better quality of life, healthier eating etccelebrated its first anniversary by carrying a 10p donation to the BHWTfor every April issue sold. A lovely gesture from a lovely magazine; our thanks to Ruth Tott and Paul Peacock for their kindness.We also appeared in

Country Life, Practical Poultry,Kitchen Garden, Smallholder

and

Waitrose Illustrated

You may recall in the last issue that Ondine Walter-Browne’s hens regularlysend us their egg monies; well having seen themselves in the newsletter,Richard here in the office received another email from the lovely layers of Clacton-on-Sea:

“Chance, Clover, Daisy, Dandelion, Hope & Joy would like to say thankyou for their mention in the recent newsletter. They are coping well with their new-found celebrity status and are sending more of their eggmoney as they are still very much in touch with their roots and have not forgotten where they came from! Many thanks from six much-loved ex-bats.”

The email was accompanied by another £50 donation – those girls arepopping eggs for England it seems!

Dandelion...taking it easy!

They’ve got competitionthough – Cobi & MarkSnelson’s hens havemanaged to raise £100 inegg monies!Yay!

Supporter, David Cox, gave the charityconfidence for the future by leaving a gift inhis Will; he also called into the office a fewweeks ago and gave me a lovely matchingchicken mug, coaster and teapot along with adonation and card with kind and encouragingwords. How lucky are we.Finally in our fundraising section, I want to remember a much lovedsupporter, who sadly died recently. Rita McCabe followed my progresslong before I had formed the charity; she trusted me and always gaveme her steadfast support. Rita used to write articles for magazines andif a piece was published, would donate the proceeds to help more girlsenjoy a happy retirement. I met her several times and on one occasion shepresented me with a framed photo of some of my special hens which hadappeared in a local paper; she was trulya kind and thoughtful lady. Rita’s familyhave subsequently donated in her memory and I think Rita would be wellpleased to know that over £300 will behelping even more girls enjoy a freerange retirement.We also have another five fab fundraiserswho are making themost of the Justgivingwebsite.Toni Clarkson, Lisa Cornish and Anna Allenwill all be taking part in the Bupa 10,000 funrun in London on 25th May; super fit AngieEvans will be running for the BHWT onceagain in the Flora London Marathon on 26thApril and Jo Cowper and Lucy Patterson aredoing the Exeter half marathon on Sunday 3rdof May.To sponsor any of our wonderful runnerssimply visit their Justgiving pages atwww.justgiving.com/bhwt

All places are now filled in the BUPA 10k in May, thank you to everyonewho applied, and we have seven runners currently getting fit around thecountry. Trixy Gallagher made us laugh with her training programme:

“I was so pleased you picked me to do this run! It's just 3 months since I had my baby& we have started enthusiastically training together (me running round the villagewith the pram)! You'll be delighted to hear that I have already smashed my Just Givingtarget of £500! Everyone knows how passionate I am about my lovely chickens, &how hard we are trying, so they've been extremely generous. I've plenty more peopleto pester yet, so I've raised it to £750... Raising money & getting my figure back - yay!Anyway, thanks for the bits you sent me in the post. I'll be donning the T-shirt for myrun!”

Trixy has a page on the Justgiving site at www.justgiving.com/trixy. She’s already awinner in our eyes and a great illustration of the fantastic proactive support we get!

Cobi & Mark SnelsonRitaTrixy Gallagher and daughter Tallulah on their morning run.