Bowie

Is there life on mars? We believe Bowie thinks so. We believe Bowie actually lives there in her mind. She is our odd bod chicken.

Bowie was found starving to death in a free range egg farm in May, 2014. She had somehow escaped the hands of workers when they came into the shed and picked up the other 60,000 hens and threw them in the truck bound for slaughter. I first saw her cowering in a group of other starving hens, up against the shed wall. These hens were left with no food or water and the sheds doors had been left open, so predators could come in and eat them one by one. They would have been left like this for at least at least a week.

Bowie is the hen right at the back, with her head turned to the right.

Bowie looked like a starving alien when my friend picked her up and made her way out of the farm with her. I picked another hen who looked to be her friend. We didn’t want to separate them, so we took them together. I got Bowie (and her friend Pepper home) and I have never experienced a hen more terrified than Bowie. She was so afraid. She would not let me get near her. Her panic was more than any cage hen I’d ever rescued. I’d pick her up and she would  cry out in horror and I literally thought she was going to die of fear. You see, in a free range egg farm, submissive hens have nowhere to hide. A chicken’s hierarchal system is very complex and there is a pecking order. In a flock of 60,000 the pecking order would be absolutely all over the place, chickens would have to re-establish their places daily, which means submissive hens would be attacked daily and with nowhere to hide, their lives would be lived in constant fear.

The emptied shed where Bowie was found.

She took great comfort in her friend Pepper. They never let each other out of their sights for one minute and spent the days chatting, learning how to walk and eating…these girls just ate and ate and ate. That’s what you do when you are starved.

Bowie is the hen in the background.

Bowie was named after 1970’s David Bowie because she was so thin and pale…and looked like an alien hen!

After about one month, these two girls were introduced to my special needs flock and slowly they fitted in.

Bobby Bob Bob and Bowie

Bowie has grown into a huge, vocal girl who is incredibly cheeky and is no longer afraid of us at all.

She wanders around in her own world. Her nickname is “Life On Mars” because she is so (charmingly) strange. We don’t know what goes on in her mind, but it is different to the rest of the chickens. She has her own world and she is happy in it. Apparently there is life on mars.

Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally