Seven and Eleven were rescued at the same time from the same battery egg farm in Victoria. Trapped in tiny cages with five hens to a cage, their suffering was intense.
Looking up from below the cages that Seven and Eleven were rescued from.
Rescued early 2012, these two beautiful White Leghorns came to live at Lefty’s Place. These two have been inseparable from day one. They look incredibly alike, except Seven has larger light brown markings on her face.
Seven
Eleven
Both hens are amazing at flying and are often the stars of my “Jumping For Joy” series
These two best friends were so very lucky to be rescued. Very few are this lucky. Please think again when considering purchasing eggs or food made from eggs
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
We wandered into a farm in May 2014. One of the free range egg sheds had it’s doors wide open. Dead bodies of chickens were strewn around the outside and inside of the shed. Feather piles were left from where foxes had picked off the left behind living hens. This was a shed that had been recently depopulated. “Depopulation” means that hens are caught and sent to slaughter at 18 months old because they don’t produce enough eggs to be profitable after this age. So, the farmhands caught every hen they could and left the ones who were too hard to catch behind. They left them no water and no food. These girls sat in that open door shed, starving and thirsty and waiting for foxes to come and eat them. A pile of empty beer cans sat up against the wall left behind by farm hands. They drank beer whilst the sweet birds in front of them had nothing.
Rapunzel and her friend in the depopulated free range egg farm
The first night we were there we rescued some girls, but had to leave some behind because we didn’t have enough hands. The next night, my friend and her friend went back to get the rest of the hens. They found most had had their necks broken and had been stacked in a pile at the shed door. There was a few girls who had escaped this brutality by hiding and they were rescued that night by my friend. One of those girls was Rapunzel.
Rapunzel came to me and was nothing more than skin and bone. Her starving little body was so small and cold that I wasn’t sure she would make it. She got through her recovery stage with flying colours and is now one of the happy, talkative girls who lives at Lefty’s Place. Rapunzel is very particular about her nesting box and will wait all day until it’s free for her to lay her egg. When she finally gets possession of it, her chirps of joy can be heard by all.
Rapunzel is a prime example of the cruelty involved in the free range egg industry. Please remember her skinny little body when you make your food choices.
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
Judy Loveday was rescued in 2013 from a battery egg farm. She was found in the manure pit which is below the thousands of cages above it. This pit runs the entire length of the shed and can become metres deep in chicken manure. Chickens somehow get down into these pits from the cages above. They are either thrown down by workers or they escape and get down there during depopulation (when hens are sent to slaughter at 18 months old).
This was taken standing in the manure pit and looking up.
The hens who live down here can’t survive for long because there’s no food and the water they drink is from puddles on the manure piles. Hens get stuck in the manure and die there. They can’t get out. It’s a long, agonising death for a hen stuck in the manure. The hens who live down in the manure pits make nests out of the manure to lay their eggs in, it’s incredibly sad.
Judy Loveday was found cowering up against the corner near the shed door with one a few of her friends. She was covered in manure, sick, emaciated and completely terrified. She was rescued that night, but there were many we could catch and had to leave behind.
Judy now loves life. She enjoys foraging and dust bathing just that little bit more than everyone else, her need to be clean comes from a past living in and on mounds of poo.
All egg farms have these pits and all egg farms have chickens trapped in them. This is an horror added to the lives of commercial hens that not many people know about.
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
Willow was rescued from a cage egg farm in Pearcedale, Victoria in 2012. She had been taken out of the cage she had lived in for more than a year with 5 other hens and thrown unconscious onto a manure pile down below the cages. That’s how much they cared about her at that farm. They thought she was nothing. Just another egg machine who was disposable. A rescuer saw her lying there unconscious on that manure pile and picked her up along with another chicken who was also dangerously close to death who is now named, Boudica.
Willow and Boudica weren’t expected to survive the journey home. Their rescuer hoped with all her might that these two emaciated, featherless and crippled souls would make it home alive. They did and spent many weeks being intensively nursed in her care. They were then brought to Lefty’s Place to live for the rest of their lives.
Willow and Boudica were the best of friends during their recovery and they are still best friends now. They sleep next to each other each night and are always together. They are best friends.
Willow took 6 months to grow her feathers back and in that time she earned the nickname – “Baldy”. When you call the word Baldy, her little legs come running. She is fully feathered now and beautiful. She is very cheeky and sneaks up on me whenever I am taking photos and climbs up on me to get a higher view of the world. She loves life and spends her days running from one exciting thing to another exciting thing!
Read her story on the Animals Australia, Make it Possible site here:
She was found on Friday March 6,2015 wandering alongside the weir which runs parallel to the Midland Highway. She was found weak, emaciated, terrified and suffering from pneumonia. The ranger was called to pick her up and he took her to our vet. Our vets treated her for pneumonia, wormed her, liced her and then called us – “We have a little lamb here. Would you like her?”. How could we say no!
Elsie in her pen at the vets.
We picked the little lady up on Saturday morning. She looked so small, sick and terrified in her holding pen. In to the car she went for the journey to her new home.
Her nose was running constantly and she was so tired. She hadn’t eaten for quite some time. We don’t know how she ended up stranded next to the highway but we think she may have been dumped there by someone. Perhaps someone purchased a small lamb for a Christmas present for a child or as a lamb to fatten up to be eaten and left her in their backyard. When she became unwell, they probably had no idea what to do with her and dumped her. Elsie was not interested in the other sheep, she acted like she’d never seen them before. She wandered around the property grazing alone for months before she chose to join the flock. She is still scared of us, but not so much. She’s more wary than terrified of us these days.
After about three months of wandering our paddocks alone, Elsie finally decided to join the flock. Righty welcomed her with open arms and protected her from any bullying. Wrinkles fell in love with her and sticks by her side most days. It’s lovely to see this little lady comfortable with her new family.
Wrinkles and Elsie
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
