Hens on the run: what’s so funny?

OR those who do not give any value to a hen’s life, there was much to laugh at in reports of a truck shedding its load of 6,500 hens in Co Cavan (Irish Examiner, December 16).

For those who do value a hen’s life (beyond her monetary value), the image of hens ‘making a run for it’ across a field was a poignantly sad one.

The hens were on their way to be slaughtered when the accident occurred. Up to that moment (assuming they came from the battery hen system of production), they had never seen the light of day, cooped up in crowded, windowless sheds.