A Kāpiti coast woman is on a mission to save 3000 free range chickens who aren't providing enough eggs to their owners and were destined to end up as dog food.
Photo: 123RF
Helen Whitfield lives in Ōtaki, not far from the farm where the chooks have stopped producing the amount of eggs needed to make them financially viable.
She runs Elamore Farm Animal Rescue and is rounding them up and taking them home in her Honda Jazz, 46 at a time.
Ms Whitfield is hoping to rehome as many of them as she can before they become dog tucker.
She said she put the chickens in either a coop or a paddock at her place with people collecting some of them, and some chickens going as far as Taranaki and Taumaranui.
She said she finds chickens fascinating animals.
"They all have different personalities and these shavers are just so friendly, even though they've been in a farm environment, I walk into the paddock and I just call them and they come running."
Ms Whitfield said currently her favourite chicken was called Cinnamon.
She said she had to rescue the chicken because it had got stuck in the mud due to the amount of rain.
"She was covered in mud and so I brought her inside and I gave her a bath and I blow dried her and now she thinks I'm just the bee's knees!"
Ms Whitfield said she is limited in the number of chickens that she's able to take at once, but as soon as she brought them to her place they were being adopted straight out again.
She said she was hoping to find homes for at least 500 of the chickens and it was likely people would still get two more years of laying out of the rescue chooks.
