Hens destined for slaughter if they can’t be rehomed
A woman whose baby cheated death six times is hoping for another miracle – to save 450 hens set to be slaughtered on an Auckland farm.
Dani Prance, who runs New Beginnings Rescue and Rehoming, said the birds, whose egg-laying days had dwindled, would be culled in mid February if she could not find them homes.
At 18-months-old, the hens were moulting and having a breather from egg laying, she said.
‘‘They can still lay eggs but
they’ve reached their use-by date for farmers.’’
Chickens live eight years on average, but hens only productively lay eggs in the first two years of their lives.
Prance is desperately seeking
‘‘forever’’ homes in Auckland, which are not dependent on the hens’ egg laying, where the chickens ‘‘will be loved and looked after’’.
She hopes the birds will be saved – just like her ‘‘miracle baby’’ Matilda, who was born in June weighing only 723 grams.
‘‘She was the size of a block and a half of butter,’’ Prance said.
Matilda defied the odds after being born at just 25 weeks’ gestation.
‘‘The doctors don’t know how she’s here because in all of their medical textbooks she shouldn’t be alive.’’
‘‘We almost lost her six times due to chronic lung disease,’’ said Prance, who runs the rescue out of farms in Taranaki and Auckland’s Rodney District.
Many times doctors at Waikato Hospital told Prance her daughter only had a few hours left to live and it was time to think about a funeral, she said. ‘‘But every time, she kind of poked her tongue out and picked herself up.’’
‘‘Her chronic lung disease is the only thing that she’s still battling but we’re very hopeful that in the next month or so she’ll come off the oxygen,’’ she said.
Matilda spent three months in Waikato Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit with her mother keeping vigil.
Prance said while in hospital, she kept running the rescue, looking for homes for hens facing untimely deaths. ‘‘Even though we were going through that process, New Beginnings never got put on hold.’’
Anyone interested in adopting the Auckland hens can email newbeginningsrescue.rehoming@ gmail.com or message the rescue’s Facebook page.