'Living nightmare': Stressed hens attack each other

“The issue I have is a grandmother worker that is in tears because she has got to pick up a dead hen because they are fighting each other."

A poultry farm owner is reporting his hens are attacking each other because of stress from a nearby development.

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The owner of an 87-year-old Invercargill poultry farm is “living a nightmare every dam day” as he deals with stressed hens that are attacking each other.

Nigel Hewitson owns McNeills Poultry Farm in McQuarrie St, where it has operated since 1938.

Hewitson was born and raised in Invercargill, then spent 20 years in the United States, before he returned to take over the family business.

The viability of the poultry farm business came under pressure a couple years back when caged hens were phased out.

However, Hewitson said the real nightmare had come from a new housing development going in next to the poultry farm business.

He said the noise, as well as the vibration from compacting work, had stressed the hens immensely.

The hens had dropped a significant amount of weight because of that stress and had also started to attack each other.

“The issue I have is a grandmother worker that is in tears because she has got to pick up a dead hen because they are fighting each other,” Hewitson said.

“Animal hearing is 100 times better than humans hearing. The vibration from the compacting machines was what was doing a lot of the damage because it was earthquakes to them.

“They were stressed and attacking each other. I had to live with this every day.”

He said by Christmas last year the 5000 hens were eating about 145kgs less food per day.

“That is enough feed to feed another 900 hens, so the weight of the hens went down and egg production went down.”

Hewitson is annoyed that he was not notified as an affected party when the development went through the resource consent process.

He was also frustrated that he had been unable to get any answers from the Invercargill City Council about it.

Hewitson ended up reporting himself to the Ministry of Primary Industry because of the state of the hens.

He also went as far as taking out a High Court injunction on the development.

“That was the only option. I was picking up dead animals all of the time, and I had to because nobody had my back,” Hewitson said of the High Court injunction.

It led to the required noise levels of the development being brought down, but Hewitson said that was still not sufficient because there were still issues.

“Hens have no muscles in their feet. [The vibration and noise] go right up through their feet and to the heart of the body.”

“My next issues will be when they start building the houses and a skilsaw starts going.”

An emotional and frustrated Hewitson spoke to Invercargill councillors at a meeting this week, where he made it clear he wants and needs help on the matter for the sake of the hens and his business.

“I’m living this nightmare every dam day, and it plays on you,” he told the councillors.

“I’m tired of fighting people because all I get out of the Invercargill City Council office is that there is nothing we can do, because we signed [the consent] and this is a unique situation.”

“All I am trying to do is put food on somebody’s table. What is the use of building houses if you can’t put food on the table?”

Invercargill City Council’s consenting and environment group manager Jonathan Shaw said Hewitson had brought his concerns to his attention recently, and he had a meeting with Hewitson last week.

“There is still further review I need to undertake, so I am probably limited at this time as to what I can actually say,” Shaw said.

He hoped he would be in a position to provide an update to Hewitson in the next 14 days and provide further information to the council’s Community Wellbeing and Regulatory committee at its meeting next month.