BLOG – Page 18 – Tamara Kenneally Photography

Animal Transport

They call it “livestock transport”, when what it really is is as many animals pushed on to a truck as possible with no care about the weather conditions or the duration. 2 degrees or over 40 degrees, animals bred for food are still forced on to trucks and made to endure long trips to abattoirs without water, food, space or comfort. You see, humans have such a demand to eat animal flesh that the trucks never stop. There are thousands apon thousands of sheep, cattle, pig, turkey, duck and chicken trucks driving to abattoirs around this country everyday.

In Australia we kill and consume this many animals each year:

* 460-550 million broiler (meat) chickens
*3-5 million turkeys
*8 million ducks
*4-5 million pigs
*11-12 million layer hens
*4 million bulls, bullocks and steers
*3 million cows and heifers
*7 million cattle
*700000-900000 calves (“waste products” of the dairy industry)
*5-7 million sheep
*17-19 million lambs

Thanks to Aussie Farms for these numbers www.aussiefarms.org.au

Look in to those trucks when you pass them on the freeway. Don’t look away. Connect with one of those animals eyes and let them tell you their story. They are terrified, exhausted and uncomfortable….and all for your food.

This is a series that will cover any animal transport I happen to come across or actively pursue and investigate.

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

Strawberry

When I first saw her, her little body was squashed up against the cage and her long bottom beak and roughly cut shorter top beak jutted through the bars to her neighbours cage. She looked frightened and worried. Her little face told a story of fear and sadness. It’s hard to pick the girls I want to take, because I want to take them all, but sometimes there are some that just jump out at me and I take them with me. They are indeed the lucky ones, but don’t think for a minute that I forget about the thousands we leave behind. I never do. They are always there, always there in the back of my mind with a deep regret that I couldn’t take them as well.

She was rescued that night with ten other hens, five who were rehomed to beautiful vegan homes, three who would live in my main flock and two who would live in the special needs hen flock. Strawberry was one of the two who now lives in the special needs flock. She was introduced with Babushka who only has one eye. Strawberry doesn’t really fit in to the category of “special needs”, but Babushka does and Babushka needed someone to help her join the flock so she wouldn’t be mercilessly picked on.

I named her “Strawberry” after Strawberry Shortcake because if she was a person, she’d have freckles on her sweet face and have strawberry coloured hair. Her rounded body shape also reminded me of a tiny strawberry. I named her Strawberry, but perhaps I should have named her “Zippy” or “OMG I’M SO EXCITED” because this girl is just so excited about her new life. She runs around all day in whirl of “OMG WHAT IS THIS AMAZING THING!”. It’s beautiful to watch, yet it’s also so sad. It’s so sad that she had never got to touch dirt before or look at a leaf or pick up a piece of grit in her beak. She is literally overjoyed with her new life and wants to do it all at once.

Strawberry loves people, she’s a people hen. Even after everything that has been done to her at the hands of humans, she still comes running up to us with such joy on her little face. She follows us around all day long. She chats to us constantly, she’s obviously telling us all about the new things she’s discovered and food is the most amazing thing in the entire world! Imagine having all those new foods after just eating bland, cheap crumble dust in a tin tray through bars your entire life. It must be absolute bliss.

Sweet little Strawberry’s zest for her new life has just begun. Check back here to see new photos of her new life as time goes on.

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

Babushka

“All yours,
Babooshka, Babooshka, Babooshka-ya-ya!”

She hid up the back of the cage, but even as we quickly walked by and flashed our lights on the cages, I saw her. I saw the tall, terrified girl up the back who looked like a sad old lady with one dead eye. The decisions on who to take out of thousands upon thousands of hens is always hard, but this one I knew straight away. I couldn’t leave her there.

She fought with all her might against being taken out of the cage. Not knowing where she was being taken to, with limited vision must’ve been terrifying. Life is terrifying for a battery hen. There’s no relief from the fear. They are always scared.

This cage in the photo above was Babushka’s home before she was rescued. This was it. She would have lived here for probably just under a year and a half (hens are slaughtered at 18 months old in the commercial egg industry). You can see her right at the back there, you can pick her out by her magnificent comb.

Hens go crazy living in these cages and they often turn on each other because of their frustration. Babushka’s eye was scratched by another hen and it left her with no sight in one eye. She would have been in quite a lot of pain with that eye for some time, but there is no medical care in a factory farm. These lives are worth nothing but an egg to these farmers.

Babushka’s first ever visit to the vet relieved shocking neglect. She was emaciated, weak, terrified and very unwell.

Battery hens are always emaciated but Babushka was skinny on a very serious scale. I don’t think she braved eating in that cage very often because of fear. Babushka was rescued one night in November 2015. She was scared to eat for a long time, it took her about 6 months after rescue to feel safe eating with her flock.

Babushka is probably one of the most traumatised hens I have even cared for. It took her weeks and weeks to feel safe enough to leave the coop and walk out in to the daylight. It took her months and months to be confident enough to enjoy being a chicken. She now enjoys foraging and eating just like any other chicken, but there is something different about Babushka. Because of her eye, she seems unaware of things that the other chickens are acutely aware of. Sometimes she doesn’t know where she is. I often think she has some sort of neurological issue stemming from the problem with her eye that affects her thinking.

Babushka has learnt about licking gumboots from Bobby Bob Bob and it is one of her greatest joys in life these days. Whatever makes her happy I certainly approve of.

These days Babushky is incredibly happy. She finds happiness in pants mostly, licking them, and she loves to run randomly around the place in circles whilst talking. She’s a bit of a nut, but she’s our nut and we love her.

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

Luna, Hermione, Ginny and Minerva

Meet Luna, Hermione, Ginny and Minerva. Four little white, cheeky, magical girls who we rescued from an intensive hatchery a month ago. These girls were hatched and then put in to a huge shed with some young roosters. They were bred to be the next generation of layers producing fertile eggs to be hatched for the cage, barn and free-range commercial egg industry here in Australia. When sexually mature, these pullets in the shed pictured, will be put in to huge sheds, which are divided up in to small sections where twenty hens are kept with one rooster. Their eggs are collected daily and sent to the hatchery to be incubated. These hens and roosters will live a short life because they will be slaughtered as soon as their egg production slows down (at 18 moths old). Then they will be sent to slaughter and replaced with new chickens waiting in the pullet sheds.

Luna, Hermione, Ginny and Minerva escaped this fate and now live at Lefty’s Place. They are the sweetest little girls who love life so much. They are always talking to me and asking questions. Such beautiful little chickens who should not have to live a life of confinement because of our insatiable appetite for eggs.

Named after Harry Potter characters in the hope that their lives will now always be magical.

Extra Speckley

I met her in early 2012. From that first day, I knew she was one of the cheekiest girls I’d ever know. Just a day out of the cage and she was exploring places no one dared to go. She grabbed on to her freedom and ran with it. You see, Extra Speckley had lived her life as a caged hen used for egg production. Her life was dark and without joy. She lived in a tiny cage with 5 other hens. She barely had room to move and she certainly could not escape attacks from her frustrated cage mates. When she came to me she was emaciated and so scruffy looking.

Extra settled in to free life incredibly quickly, she was always sneaking in the back door. I found her in the kitchen so many times. She was the star of my series, “Jumping For Joy”. She would jump in front of my lens with such enthusiasm. She was always the first the run to the camera to be part of it.

I said goodbye to this beautiful girl late 2013. She passed away from egg related issue (egg yolk peritonitis) and in the end, I just couldn’t save her. I miss that cheeky girl.