Birthday to celebrate

How the humble hen rose to being the UK'S fourth most popular pet

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The British Hen Welfare Trust is still basking in the glow of having found homes for ONE MILLION ex-commercial hens Rewind back to 2005 and it's likely that if you mentioned 'rehoming ex-commercial hens' in conversation you'd be looked at as though you were speaking double Dutch.

Fast forward to the present day and the British Hen Welfare Trust is still basking in the glow of having found homes for ONE MILLION ex-commercial hens, not least of all because His Majesty the King found a space in his coop for the extra special millionth.

If the fact the King himself rehoming hens doesn't give the charity's work enough endorsement, you only have to speak to a few of the thousands of families, couples, schools, universities and even prisons who have taken on some of these little creatures to realise that they are, actually, quite worthy of a space in your back garden.

The charity's journey from inception to 20th birthday has been underpinned by the belief that the humble hen is under-appreciated, under-valued and over-used by society in general; however, the tide has most definitely turned over that time as proven by the fact there are now 1.6 million domestic fowl kept as pets in the UK alone.

This has pushed hens up to fourth spot in the list of most popular pets in the UK and, while their status has grown, the number of them kept in commercial cages has dwindled, much to the charity's delight. Free range eggs made up just 35% of the overall market in 2005 compared to 73.5% in 2024, meaning millions more hens now have access to the outdoors thanks in no small part to the BHWT's campaigning to raise awareness of the joy rehomed hens bring.

KEY MOMENTS

From gently 'cramming' hens into a Mini Metro ahead of her first rehoming to sending the charity's one millionth hen off to live with King Charles, BHWT founder Jane Howorth has encountered many pivotal moments over the past 20 years.