Retired hens revitalize Cyprus olive groves

While hens are usually sent to slaughter after their egg-laying years, these have been saved by organic farmers in Cyprus who need them to fertilize their olive groves.

Saved from slaughter after their egg-laying years, hens peck and poop to their hearts' content among olive trees at the organically certified Akaki Grove, on the green foothills of the Troodos mountains west of Nicosia.

They collect food waste donations to feed hens, which in turn provide natural fertilizer for olive trees producing oil high in inflammation-busting polyphenols.

Hens reduce the presence of pests such as olive fly, a scourge for olive farmers in the Mediterranean, by pecking at larvae while simultaneously clearing surface weed cover.

Full article here.

This made me so happy to see this morning. Thank you ever so much for posting it. The picture of the farmer surrounded by the happy hens has still got me smiling.