It was no ordinary truck, with air conditioning units on the roof, and an equipment cabinet beneath the floor – was it an outside broadcast truck?

Photo by Enbytv, via Wikimedia Commons

But turns out it wasn’t – this barely readable logo on the side being the critical clue.

I eventually worked out that the ‘7’ was actually a stylised ‘V’, so the logo read ‘HatchTraveller’ – leading me to the website of a Dutch firm that specialises in chick hatching and transportation equipment.

They describe the trailer I saw as.

This extensive, high-capacity trailer is designed to meet the needs of larger poultry companies that already have a significant transportation need, or those looking to grow their business in the future.

Measuring almost 47 feet in length, the trailer is composed of nine sections. Together, these are able to accommodate up to 183,600 day-old chicks at any one time, making this one of the largest chick transportation systems available on the market. Having this additional square footage can allow poultry companies to consolidate their transport fleet: maximising the capacity of each trailer can result in fewer journeys, helping to reduce operations costs.

This HatchTraveller model is equipped with a hybrid power system as standard, which powers the trailer independently of the truck’s main fuel supply. We note that the charging range can be extended with the use of additional batteries.

So what was this “chick transportation system” doing in the back streets of Pakenham? The big unmarked warehouse down the road was probably why – run by chicken processor Ingham Enterprises.

Google Maps

So what does Inghams do in that warehouse? According to animal liberation groups it’s a chicken hatchery.

Footnote: so why was I there?

So why was I doing in the back streets of Pakenham?

It happens to be the same street that Ventura’s Pakenham bus depot is located on.

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Photo by Mattinbgn, via Wikimedia Commons

Called ‘Happy Hens Egg World’, from the highway an adventure playground with a massive slide towered above the surrounding trees, and inside the gates the ‘Big Egg’ was perched atop a visitors centre, from which tours of the egg farm could be taken.

Our family never actually paid a visit to Happy Hens – my parents knew someone who went on the tour and were disturbed by what a battery hen farm looks like from the inside, so they didn’t let us go in.

You might think that calling a battery hen farm ‘Happy Hens’ is just inviting trouble, and it did – by the 1990s activists from Animal Liberation Victoria were breaking into the complex on a regular basis and rescuing injured birds.

With all of that unwanted attention, the owners presumably realised that inviting tourists into a battery hen farm wasn’t good for business, and so the tourist complex was closed down. The massive slide was demolished soon after, but the large ‘Happy Hens’ sign on the highway is still there today, albeit repainted.

As for the trio of big hens sit outside the locked front gates, these were erected after the park closed, sometime between 2010 and 2013. So much for keeping a low profile!

Footnote

The ‘Big Egg’ was never visible above the treeline, but you can find a photo of it on the Wilkins Tourist Maps’ Australia’s Big Things webpage.

The massive slide at Happy Hens was originally located at Seagull Paddock in Geelong, a photo of the slide can be found on the KRock Facebook page.

Animal Liberation Victoria has been targeting Happy Hens for years – here is an article from 1998 detailing the arrest of an activist on trespassing charges, and by 2007 they had completed at least 23 rescue operations there.

And a 2022 update

You can now find “Happy Hens Egg Farms” eggs in supermarkets – it’s a brand of Moorabool Valley Eggs who operates the egg farm at Meredith.

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It was a wet and windy day, and I had the cat locked away in a plastic travel box on the back seat of the car. I was driving down Ballarat Road, and as I approached the intersection with Duke Street in Braybrook, I saw a dog run across the three lanes of in the middle of a 70 km/h zone, narrowly missing traffic, then stop in the middle of the median strip.

I had to slow down to miss the dog, so I pulled over into the empty right hand turn lane. I ummed and arred about stopping to pick him up, when the dog made a break for it across the other three lanes of traffic, and disappeared into the bushes on the other side of the road – a second lucky break for the dog!

By this point I figured I might as well get out in the rain and track down the dog, especially since I was already on my way to the vet.

After parking my car on the other side of the road, I saw the dog shivering and wet beneath the bushes, but it was too afraid to come out. I then remembered the bag of cat food in the car, so I grabbed a handful, and eventually I coaxed the little dog into by arms.

I then had the realisation – how am I supposed to drive across town with both a dog and a cat inside my car! Luckily there was a shopping strip nearby, so I headed over and asked if they had any cardboard boxes, which I was able to put the dog into.

It was now time to get back in the car, and the cat in the back didn’t seem to be any the wiser. However for me, the dog wasn’t happy about staying in the box – as I drove down the road, he kept on trying to poke his paws out, followed by his head. I had to pull over the car and try to cram him back in, but my attempts were in vain – i admitted defeat, and let him ride on the front seat.

I eventually made it to the vet, and left the car in the car as I carried the dog in my arms into the vet. After a quick checkup the dog was given a clean bill of health, and the vet found a microchip, so the odds of him finding his way home were good.

As for the cat, she just needed a few routine vaccinations, then was on her way back home.

Follow up

My wife rung up the vet latter that day to see what happened to the dog – turns out the vet couldn’t find the owner via the microchip register, so had to send him off to the Lost Dogs Home at North Melbourne.

On lost pets

Apparently not all vets are allowed to ring the owners of lost animals when their details come up via microchip, thanks to the Domestic Animal Act (1994).

A state law means that vets cannot reunite lost animals with their owners, much to the dismay of pet owners
Estelle Griepink And David Jeans
May 05, 2015

In Yarra Ranges, vets have come under criticism for refusing to scan the microchips of lost animals due to the little-known state law that fines clinics $700 for contacting the owners instead of notifying an animal pound.

Hundreds of people had blasted a vet on Facebook recently for refusing to scan the microchip of a lost pet found in Launching Place.

But posters on the Yarra Valley Noticeboard page were unaware that, under the Domestic Animal Act (1994), only vets with a S84Y agreement with councils were allowed to tell owners they have their pet.

I’ve also discovered that there are FIVE different registries for microchipped animals – too bad if someone looking up your lost dog only checks four of them, and your dog is listed with the registry they missed.

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I was on my way home from getting my haircut today, when what do I see, somebody’s dog in the gutter.

Someone had hit it with their car and left it on the road. I stopped to look at the dog (it was a male Jack Russell terrier, or something like it, I’m not a dog person) and it was still alive, not bleeding and only had a broken hind leg. It had a council tag so I wrote down the number, but there was no phone number or address on it so I couldn’t take it back home.

The road was near Latrobe Terrace (big highway in Geelong) so I picked the dog up and put it under a tree in the nearby park so it wouldn’t get back out into the traffic, then rung up the animal welfare place so they could go pick it up.

Guess that’s my good deed for today…

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