“ An unprofitable laying hen is very easy to adopt ”

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Helene Witter in Brouwershaven has ten chickens in a run behind the garden which can be adopted. “This is really a temporary shelter here, and I have good news because the ladies are all adopted. So when they get to their new owners, the following chickens can come back here.” Witter is the first in Zeeland to be affiliated with the Save a Legkip Foundation. The organization has nine more of these shelters spread across the country.

Soup chicken for Africa

Witter: “These chickens live in a so-called open-air shed. They live there with ten thousand other chickens, they can feed themselves, but never come out. They have to lay eggs, but after a year and a half such a chicken does not lay 100 percent, but only 85 percent of eggs, which is not profitable for a farmer, so they have to be slaughtered and sold in Africa as soup chicken.

Stress and boredom

Witter himself once started out as an adopter of chickens and now wants to educate people about the nasty sides of poultry farming by looking after chickens himself for others. “You also see a lot of bald spots in these chickens, this is due to stress and boredom. But the feathers will be back soon and then they will be happy to be able to scratch in the sun.” And they’re still laying eggs, says Helene, laughing.