Free your phone, free a hen….

Continuing the recurring theme of “weird sh*t” that we uncover on the Feathered Forager, this latest morsel from the world of telecoms surely earns a mention.

Those “virtual network operators” at giffgaff, (apparently they do something neat with SIM cards), have teamed up with animal rights group Wood Green so that, “every time someone unlocks their mobile phone, a battery hen gets unlocked too”.

“As a SIM-only mobile network we don’t think you should be locked to your phone or contract,” says a statement. “We don’t think chickens should be locked up either.

“For every giffgaff customer who activates a SIM in an unlocked mobile handset, we will donate £4 to Wood Green to cover the cost of unlocking and re-homing a hen from one of the UK’s battery farms.”

I still don’t fully understand what giffgaff actually do, but their campaign looks like having a short shelf-life anyway, as the EU ban on battery cages is now just four months away.