11/03/2026
🐔 A Little Homestead Update for Down To Earth Homesteading Australia 🐔
On Monday, we welcomed 30 rescue hens to the homestead. These girls have come from a commercial caged-egg farm, and it’s clear they’ve had a hard life. Many don’t yet know the simple things most chickens take for granted, like how to roost. It’s heartbreaking to see how much they’ve missed out on.
My younger kids have started calling them “the scraggly chickens” because quite a few are still growing their feathers back. They look a bit rough now, but they’re already showing little sparks of personality.
Normally, our homestead is filled with our heritage breeds: Australorps, Golden Laced Wyandottes, Cream Legbars, Easter Eggers, and the rest of our colourful flock. But with everything going on in the world lately, I wanted to make sure we had a few extra eggs coming in without waiting on incubators or grow-out time.
Then I saw a post about these hens needing homes… and that’s how we ended up with 30 ex-cage girls overnight.
For now, they’re in quarantine for a couple of weeks. Their current space is smaller than I’d ideally like, but it’s still a huge step up from where they came from.
Once they’re healthier and ready, they’ll be moving into their own dedicated paddock where they can finally experience life like a hen is meant to. Their days will be filled with roaming around, scratching, dust bathing, sunbathing, and just being chickens.
I can’t wait to watch them transform.