Yet that's what my customers are looking for - something different from the average brown egg you find in the shop. I've always got people waiting for eggs, no matter how many the hens lay. The eggs range in colour from a deep coffee brown through to a greeny-blue, and weigh from one ounce up to four ounces. Some are the size of a penny, others are as long as a five-pound note. Selling eggs is the only way I can make money at the moment, but I'm trying to raise enough money to turn the rescue centre into a visitor centre.
Most people think of chickens as either egg machines or food.
You ask some kids where eggs come from and they'll say, 'the supermarket'. If I can get people to come in and interact with the chickens, understand where their food comes from, then the animal welfare side of it will improve. We've never heard of such a thing,' they say, and that's usually the end of the conversation. But if I wasn't here, the battery hens would be sent to the processors and turned into chicken soup, dog food, cat food, chicken pies, things like that. I like to feel I give some a chance to become a real hen.