Twelve-year-old girl helps rehome hundreds of hens

A 12-year-old from Kent spends her Saturday mornings volunteering to help rehome farm hens.

Harriet and mum Lynda work with Fresh Start For Hens, a Kent-based charity which rehomes hens from the commercial egg sector.

BBC Young Reporter winner Harriet, from Chart Sutton, entered the competition to tell her story and encourage other farmers to rehome their hens.

Harriet said it made her "feel proud" that she could "do something for these chickens, save their lives and give them to these happy families".

At 72 weeks, the egg production of a hen drops, making them no longer commercially viable.

The charity works with farms to buy the hens rather than them being sent for slaughter.

They are given to people who want to keep the animals as pets.

Harriet helps at a collection point in Aylesford, where over 100 hens at a time are received from farms and transferred to new owners.

Potential owners are asked to upload pictures of their coops and runs, with spot checks taking place. A minimum donation of £2.75 per hen is required.

Everyone at Fresh Start for Hens is a volunteer. Petrina Thomas, who leads some of the collection mornings in Aylesford, believes they all do it for "the love of hens".

Some of the birds are bald and Harriet believes it’s because they "get quite bored", so they "peck each other and rip out their feathers".

But after a few weeks of being rehomed, the hens often become almost fully-feathered again.

Harriet hopes to get more farmers to rehome their hens rather than send them to slaughter.

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