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Battery hens given new lives as pets

Some 628 battery hens have been saved from the slaughter house by the Scottish branch of the Battery Hen Welfare Trust.

The birds, who have reached the end of their productive laying lives, will be distributed to families as pets in exchange for a donation, reports the BBC.

One individual who is now the proud pet-owner of a hen, Romany Russell of Causewayhead, Stirling, told the news provider: "It was something I never thought I could do until one of my friends got some chickens."

"I suppose I just wanted to give them the lives that they should have had originally," she noted, adding that they are very easy to care for.

Before giving them away to families, the trust gives each of the hens a medical examination and then allows people to select between two and 12 to take home.

In an interview with the Times, Jane Howorth, who established the Battery Hen Welfare Trust, asserted that hens are the "friendliest" pets.

Meanwhile, the Bridgewater Mercury recently reported that an unusual relationship has developed between a dog and a chick in Somerset.

It noted that Nell, a collie cross, and Rover, an abandoned chick, often curl up with each other and Nell feeds and cleans the baby hen.

Bring your pet with you, says Cruise Line

A cruise line has urged pet lovers to consider taking their animals on holiday with them rather than locking them up in kennels and catteries and risk driving them mad.

Stena Line is encouraging customers to spare their pet the distress of being left behind when the family goes on holiday.

After consulting a leading animal psychologist on the matter the firm is now trying to entice its clientele to bring them along for the ride.

Dr Roger Mugford, a leading animal behaviourist and psychologist, said pets require daily companionship as well as a balanced diet and clean water.

"Left in unfamiliar environments, pets have been known to reach levels of depression that verge on hysteria so I have teamed up with Stena Line to educate holidaymakers that there is a viable alternative to leaving pets [behind]," he added.

The firm's general manager, Lars Olsson, said Dr Mugford is working with the cruise line to devise a set of pet travel safety guidelines.

Cancer-detecting dog

An Asian biotech firm has cloned canines it claims can detect cancer in patients, it has been reported.

South Korean firm RNL Bio has revealed four Labrador puppies have been duplicated from a Japanese dog that used to sniff out sufferers of the illness, according to Reuters.

The report added that scientists are trying to discover whether the dog docs can pick up an odour from cancer cells on a patient's breath or skin to detect the condition.

According to the firm, Marine - the black Labrador the puppies were cloned from - had a perfected 'sixth sense' for sniffing out the condition.

Dog-cloning expert Lee Byeong-chun, who is a professor at Seoul National University, told the news agency: "Marine has excellent characteristics for cancer sniffing and I hope the cloned dogs have the same characteristics."

The Labrador Retriever was first bred in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, which it was named after.

Past Features/News archive can accessed here.

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