Whenever we get some more ex-batts, I like to try to give them a name that suits them and I like it to be a ‘pretty’ name because I think they deserve it.
Up until today I’ve named all the hens I’ve rescued except one, a white barn girl who my husband Ben decided to call Camilla. This name came from The Muppet Show and Gonzo’s friend/girlfriend (I was never sure what the situation was with these two!) who was a white hen called Camilla.
I didn’t mind this name and it really suits her now I’ve got to know her. A while ago I talked Ben into coming to the British Hen Welfare Trust Rehoming days and we helped at one in Lancs today. At the farm we empty cages of an agreed number of hens that would otherwise be slaughtered and we rehome them.
I’m not sure how they get out of the cages but sometimes there are one or two ‘stray’ hens in the sheds just wandering around. The sheds are very long with rows of cages stacked floor to ceiling running the length of them. There are narrow aisles between the rows and a small space underneath the lower cages where they’re raised up off the floor.
We never like to leave these girls out and about and always try to catch them before we go; easier said than done. It turns into a bad comedy sketch and you can almost hear the Benny Hill music playing in the background. Imagine the scenario – there’s one hen walking, (actually it’s more like sauntering) along an aisle, a person stealthily creeping up behind the hen and a person walking towards the hen from opposite direction. What does the hen do? Runs underneath the cages to the next aisle. This seems to go on for a while with the hens making us look like absolute fools – you hear shouts of “To me!”, “To you!”, “She’s behind you!”, “I’ve got it!”, “No, she got away!”, “Back to you!” as the hen scurries away underneath another cage and we start all over again! At one point I was face down on the floor, arms stretched out in the gap below the lower cages desperately trying to cling on to a hen who had other ideas. I won that little battle and today we actually did quite well and got all the strays.
Ben was also involved in this stray hen catching palaver and proudly came out of the shed holding a hen declaring ‘we would take her home with us and she would be called Stevie’. The logic behind this was that Steve McQueen was in ‘The Great Escape’, the hen was an escape artist and therefore Stevie was a fitting name.
“We are not calling a hen Stevie” I said – “It’s not a pretty name!”. He carried on referring to her as Stevie and I kept saying no. Now, a few hours later I’ve had to (reluctantly) relent, he did rescue her so it’s only fair that he names her. He can call her Stevie and I’ll carry on calling her ‘the hen that’s not being called Stevie’ until I at least find a nice middle name for her so she sound’s a bit more feminine and ‘pretty’!
So, be warned. If you don’t mind your hen being named after an actor in a 1963 American World War II epic film, then let your husband pick the names!
I’m getting her a baseball and a baseball mitt.
Of course but don’t forget the motorbike too!