Ex-battery hens arrive with a particular set of needs that a home flock setup does not automatically meet. They have lived indoors in close company, many are missing feathers, and many have never perched, ranged on grass or felt rain, and their first weeks with you are a period of rest and learning as much as a change of address. Prepare their housing, their feed, their quiet, and their paperwork before the rescue date, and read what the rescue knows about them before they travel.
Separate Housing for the First Weeks
Have separate housing ready for their first weeks, set apart from your existing flock, with its own feeder, drinker and run. Keeping them apart at first is basic biosecurity: birds from a large unit can carry infections they show no sign of, and your home flock can carry its own, so a settling period apart protects both groups while you watch the new hens eat and drink, and check their droppings, with your own eyes. It also gives the newcomers a calm territory of their own, because hens meeting established flock members on day one, while weak and strange-smelling, get bullied at exactly the moment they can handle it least.
Make the housing kind to feather-poor birds. Hens missing much of their feather cover feel cold, wind and sun far more than a fully feathered bird, so weather protection must be easy for them to reach and use: a dry, draft-free house, shade over part of the run, and shelter they can step into without climbing, jumping or competing. Expect some hens to stay indoors for days at first. That is not failure; the doorway to the outdoors is a new idea, and they will use it when they are ready.
Low Perches, Deep Bedding and a Gradual Feed Change
Set perches low and keep them simple, because many ex-battery hens have never perched at all, and a hen who has spent her life on wire or slats may not have the leg strength or the balance for a high roost. A low, wide perch she can step onto teaches the habit safely, and it can be raised as she gains strength. Lay bedding deep, dry and simple, so sore feet and bare skin rest on something soft, and so hens who have never scratched can start learning on forgiving ground.
Transition their feed gradually from what they know. Ask the rescue what ration they have been on, start them on that same feed, and mix toward your own layer ration over a week or more. A bird already coping with a new home, new water and daylight she has never lived under does not need a new diet on the same day. Keep fresh water in shallow drinkers at ground level where they find it without searching, and give them quiet and time: short, calm visits from you, no handling beyond health checks in the first days, and no dogs learning manners through their fence.
The Rescue Record Travels With Them
Ask the rescue what its records hold about these hens: treatments they have been given, any illness seen in their unit, and their age as known. Read that record before they arrive, because it shapes the preparation itself — hens recorded as recently treated may need their course finished or a vet conversation booked, and hens whose age is known to be older may need the gentler end of every plan. When they are rehomed, that history should travel with them rather than staying behind in a rescue office, so their next keeper starts where you started: knowing what is known. Their Transferrable Profiles carry that record with the hens, so a future keeper reads the same rescue notes you read.
Before the hens travel, open their Transferrable Profiles page on KinsLe and read the rescue notes there, so housing, feed and perches can match what they actually need.