Chook rescuers seek happy homes for hens

Hundreds of chickens are up for adoption after clawing their way back to health.

The birds are under the caring wing of several volunteers at North Canterbury Chicken Rescue.

Some are found abandoned on roadsides and others are cage farming rejects, a system that will be banned at the end of the year.

A few weeks ago volunteer Logan Smoor picked up over 100 hens from a cage farm in Otago.  

He was shocked at the condition they were in.

"They were malnourished, they'd gone through a moulting process so they looked awful but we nursed them back to health and we're getting them ready to be rehomed," he says.

"It's definitely full on work teaching them how to 'chicken' again, but look at these girls here, they're happily scratching away, drinking and eating,"  Amanda Gill says proudly.

Her tee-shirt says "what the cluck", similar to an expression she's said many times when needy chickens arrive at the centre.

Amanda started North Canterbury Chicken Rescue at her Eyrewell farmlet five years ago.

"There's no way I can turn a blind eye to birds in need," she says.

A cacophony of clucking and crowing echoes across a paddock turned poultry refugee encampment.

There are about 500 birds at the site but this fluctuates, at times there can be over 1000.

The rescue service is contacted daily by people who've found homeless hens or no longer want them.

It's non-stop for Amanda who is also a mum and a mechanic at the local garage.

"Going to work six hours a day, being a mum of three kids between seven and 10 and family life, it's nearly too much sometimes. I think I do more in one day than people do in three!"

So what does she love about chooks?

"A lot of people just see them as a food source but to us, they've got just as much personality as your family cat or dog," she says.

Logan's holding a rooster called Royal, who was dumped near the Selwyn District Council's dog pound.

Royal has handsome greeny black tail feathers but his legs are dry and blistery, an infestation of mites that have burrowed under the skin.

"We'll give him a dose of Ivermectin which will help kill off the parasites and we'll put some cottonseed oil on which will also help smother the lice and make the skin hydrated, and all the dead crusty skin will be able to be removed."

Dozens of birds have been successfully rescued from a chicken dump site around the oxidation ponds in the Christchurch suburb of Bromley.

Amanda says the team celebrated wildly when they caught the last ones in the bushes around the ponds.

"People must think what are these queer people doing! We scream 'woo-hoo', there's hi-fives and smiles all around, it's a great sense of achievement rescuing chickens."

The North Canterbury Rescue Centre is hosting an adoption day on 18 December at the South Eyre Road property.

Amanda is hoping a third of the colourful flock will be re-homed.

"We did an adoption day on Waitangi Day and my 400 metre driveway was packed out to the road and we pretty much had no birds left. It was absolutely amazing," she says.

Click here to find out more about this weekend's chicken adoption day.