HUNDREDS of hens have been rehomed in just two weekends as part of a push to help them avoid slaughter.

Fresh Start for Hens is a national volunteer run organisation that collects hens from farms across the country and rehomes them to stop them being taken to slaughter.

Run locally by two women, Emma Sheppard and Katherine Staniford, the organisation tends to get a steady flow of hens from farms throughout the year.

But last month, a mix up at one of the farms meant that the group was provided with 800 hens at once, meaning that they had to launch an emergency rehome to get them to their new families.

Predominantly run via social media, Emma and Katherine put a call out to people in the area they cover, the New Forest, Southampton and Eastleigh, which then resulted in 772 hens being rehomed across just two weekends.

A total of 406 were rehomed on August 21, whilst a further 368 were rehomed on August 28 and Emma Sheppard from Totton, who has been organising the operation in this area for around a year now, said the rehome was “amazing”.

She told the Echo: “Southampton really did pull it out the bag. It was a case of we had to get these hens gone.

“We picked them up from the farm on the Thursday and they went into holding banks in people’s stables. Then we made temporary accommodation for the rehome.

“The hens are only 72 weeks old and the supermarkets say the eggs don’t travel very well, they get quite brittle but for your everyday backyard chicken keeper, actually these girls will keep on laying for quite some time.

“We can’t rehome hens unless they’ve got places to go but people have just really stepped up and helped us out over these emergency rehomes.”

Daily Echo: Fresh Start for Hens rehomed 774 hens across just two weekends in Southampton, Eastleigh and The New Forest.

Fresh Start for Hens do their rehomes at Broadlands Fishing Lake.

All hens are home checked beforehand and the group also provide advice both before and after rehoming on health issues and how to keep the hens safe from other animals.

Emma explained that if they were sent to slaughter, they would become “dog food”, but with people taking them in to their gardens and even their homes, they are instead becoming “family pets who will gift their new families with beautiful, fresh eggs”.