It was November 2014 and Rhonda the Rhode Island Red hen was broody again. All day she sat on her eggs with steely determination. Rhonda is a chronic brooder and we’ve watched her for many years sit on eggs in desperation to hatch them. We’ve always agreed not to let our animals breed as I have a strict no breeding policy at Lefty’s Place – there’s enough animals needing homes and love in this world to bring any more into it. This particular time there was a problem. Arguments abounded in the household. One of us was vehemently against Rhonda having a chick and one of us was for it. Sadly, as I was away from home working for a few of those weeks, the person who wanted Rhonda to have the chick won out and “accidentally” forgot to collect the eggs. Late November 2014 saw a little ball of yellow fluff hatch open to the world and to Rhonda’s delight, she finally had a baby.
Not knowing if this chick was a male or female I named him/her, “Poppy Popeye”. This gave the option of either name being used when we found out what sex the little one was.
Rhonda threw herself into her mothering role with gusto. Her happiness dimmed my anger at the “accidental” hatching slightly as this seemed to be one of the most important things that had ever happened to Rhonda. Her life was consumed with her baby. She taught Poppy Popeye everything and kept him safe from the other chickens with passion. No one dared come near Poppy Popeye in the end because Rhonda’s attacks were less than pleasant. Sometimes I watched this duo with sadness thinking of all the chicks who never get to experience such a mother’s love, who never get to experience being taught how to be a chicken by their loving mothers. Rhonda’s love for her baby was no different than a human woman’s love for her baby – it was raw, real and unwavering.
It became apparent that Poppy Popeye was a male as soon as I saw his little comb growing in the shape of his father’s, Super Chicken’s, comb. He grew to be quite lanky and lean, he was definitely a rooster! His name was immediately changed to “Popeye” and he began to become a cheeky teenager.
As he grew, I realised that Popeye’s real mother was Pickles – she is a Leghorn/New Hampshire cross. Rhonda seemingly sat and hatched one of Pickle’s egg instead of her own, yet it made no difference to her, she still loved Popeye as her own flesh and blood.
Rhonda continued to teach Popeye the ways of the world until he was about 4 months old and then Popeye decided it was time to explore the world on his own terms. He started to try out his croaky crow. He and Super Chicken get along fine, there is no fighting thus far, they seem to just stay out of each others way.
These days, Popeye is the one chicken I have who refuses to go into the chicken run at the routine, expected time. Everyone comes running for their nightly feed, but Popeye has his own adventures to attend to. We have created a special little door for him to get back into the chicken run after the others are locked in. The worry lines on my face have become deeper and darker worrying about him each late afternoon. As he gets older, he won’t want to leave the hens and will go in with them at the right time and I look forward to that day.
Most roosters who are hatched into this world are killed, Popeye was extremely lucky that he was born into a sanctuary. Most chicken breeders slaughter their young roosters as there is no demand for them. Hatching school project roosters have such trouble finding homes and most are slaughtered. The egg industry has no need for roosters and all male hatchlings are either gassed or ground up alive.
Popeye is very lucky.
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
The dairy industry wants us to believe a lot of things. They want us to believe that cows just magically produce milk forever. They want us to believe that their cows are happy, healthy animals who are loved and respected. They want us to think that milk is good for us and is the only source of calcium we could possibly find. They want us to believe that there is no problem using a female’s reproductive system for their own financial gain.
Don’t believe them. Don’t believe the picture of that smiling cow on the side of that cheese packet. The life of a dairy cow involves very little smiles for the cows and all the smiles for the humans profiting from them.
These are the sad facts of dairy farming:
* A cow only lactates after she has given birth to a calf, just like a human female.
* Calves are removed from their mothers at between 12-24 hours after birth so that the cow’s milk can be consumed by humans.
* Roughly 400,000 calves who are not wanted as herd replacements or veal meat are slaughtered at 5 days old each year in Australia.
* Calves are allowed to be transported to abattoirs at 5 days old and it is legal to starve calves for 30 hours before slaughter.
* Dairy cows are milked for ten months after their calves are removed and impregnated again as soon as possible (we are talking weeks).
* Cows grieve terribly for their calves when they are stolen from them.
* Cows can lives up to 20 years old. Commercial dairy cows are lucky to live to 7 years old.
* Selective breeding has produced cows who produce 35-50 litres per day, 3 times what one calf would need.
* Dairy cows bodies are put under immense strain. They suffer laminitis, painful ligaments from the weight of their udders and mastitis.
* When dairy cows stop producing enough milk for profit, they are sent to the abattoir to be slaughtered for mince meat. Most are starved for up to a week during transport and at the abattoir.
A dairy cow in an abattoir holding paddock with an engorged and painful udder. She hasn’t been fed for quite some time.
A friend of mine in her 70s used to live on a dairy farm and often tells me about her past living on and running a dairy farm in Kyabram, Victoria. She said to me recently:
“It was a terrible thing watching the calves be taken away as the mothers desperately tried to go after them. They grieved and called for days. When the Deadman (what her and her children called the abattoir man) came to collect the cows that weren’t good anymore, they just knew. They knew they were going to be killed. It’s a cruel life on a farm”
A bobby calf without his mother.
Something that people don’t often think about when they are drinking their milk, eating their chocolate or eating their cheese is what happens to the dairy cows when they are no longer producing enough milk. They are sent to their deaths. They live their lives being constantly pregnant, having their calves taken away from them and being milked dry daily. This outrageous abuse of the female reproductive system should shock and disgust everyone, but I am especially talking to women who have children when I say – how would you feel if that was you? How would you feel?
The photo above clearly portrays the reality of dairy for dairy cows. These are the feet and legs of “spent” dairy cows in a transport truck. The dairy cows in this image were shipped all the way from Tasmania on a boat and then transported in this truck all the way to an abattoir in North East Victoria. They are slaughtered and turned into mince meat.The dairy industry is currently using new computer technology that can tell them which cow is producing the least and most amount of milk, so the girls who are producing the least amount of milk get sent off to slaughter at quite a young age. These girls in this transport truck were only about 4-5 years old. Imagine having your babies torn away from you your entire life and then being shipped off in transport vehicles as revolting as this, not being milked and getting mastitis on the way, not being fed and then standing in line at the abattoir knowing that you are about to die. Imagine that. All the mothers out there, especially to you – imagine that.
The image above is of a spent dairy cow. She was picked up from the farm she lived at in Tasmania by a truck. She spent 15 hours on a boat from Tasmania to Melbourne. Loaded back onto a truck in Melbourne for the three hour trip to the Victorian Abattoir. She was a dairy cow. She spent her life giving birth to calves who she never got to know because they were taken away from her so her milk could be used for human consumption. Her milk output dropped and she was considered done, “spent”, of no more use to humans…and that’s when she got sent to slaughter. The terror you can see in her eye would’ve only gotten worse as she was unloaded and then slaughtered for mince meat. She was treated as nothing. No-one.
The image above was her last desperate plea for help. There she stood, in that bare paddock at the back of the abattoir. She had no food. She was starving. She hadn’t been milked for some time and her udder was full and painful. As soon as she saw us, she mustered up all the strength she had left and walked over to us as quickly as she could…..and then she pleaded with us for help. She desperately screamed and screamed and screamed at us for help. They all screamed at us for help. Their emaciated, broken bodies, full of milk, standing on dirt and/or mud were asking us with all they had left to please give them food and to please help them…and we couldn’t and it completely broke us to leave them there. This abattoir (Greenhams, Tongala) specialises in slaughtering spent dairy cows to be turned into mince meat for the American fast food industry. They slaughter 700 dairy cows per day. Many of these girls are shipped to Melbourne from Tasmania and then driven three hours to the abattoir. The others are purchased by the abattoir from farmers mostly around the area. We saw them on Friday and they had no food. They were still there on Saturday and had no food except for the little my friend was able to give them.
At the end of a dairy cow’s life, she is kept in an abattoir holding yard or paddock until it’s her time to be slaughtered. She is not fed or watered. Her udder is full to bursting and is incredibly painful. This is an explanation of what happens in the final minutes of their lives from an activist who worked undercover in this abattoir:
“They come up the race, they’re stunned, have their throats slit and then their bodies are hooked up by their leg. Their severed heads are hung up by a hook under their chin
Sometimes when they are lifted up their legs are not strong enough to support the weight of their bodies. It would be due to calcium deficiencies etc. and their bodies tear off and hit the ground. They are then deemed not fit for human consumption.”
If the cows being slaughtered are pregnant, the foetus is cut out of them and the blood is extracted from the foetus by hanging it up on hooks and making it’s legs move rapidly whilst the blood is pumped out of them. This blood (fetal bovine serum) is the most widely used serum-supplement for the in vitro cell culture of eukaryotic cells. “This is due to it having a very low level of antibodies and containing more growth factors, allowing for versatility in many different cell culture applications” (Wikipedia).
It takes just 40 minutes from stunning until every piece of the cow’s body is packed up in boxes and ready to be shipped out. 40 minutes from being an individual who thinks and feels to being a product to be eaten.
This is dairy.
Please re-think using these female bodies and condemning them to a life of grief for your food choices.
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
Big guns
Big mouths
Small personality
No empathy
Thinks the world is theirs.
Hates animals.
If male, usually hates women.
Tough people with big guns. They are everywhere.
You’ll usually see them in their 4WDs throwing cans of VB out of their car windows. You’ll see them on the wetlands telling female animal rescuers that they’ll rape them. You’ll see them hiding behind a bush shooting at a beautiful deer.
Hunting is allowed all year round in many parts of this country, duck hunting season is allowed in Victoria from March to June. Whilst out on the wetlands, myself and a friend were chased through the reeds and water because we were out there looking to help injured birds. We were treated as criminals. I was fined, my friend was fined and banned from entering the wetlands for the entire season. Before we were apprehended, male duck hunters yelled gender based obscenities at us. What they yelled at us was revolting. They stood there in their camouflage clothing holding their big guns looking (and acting like) 13 year old boys who needed to prove how much of a man they were by shooting defenceless ducks.
A duck rescuer waits for the first gun shot of the season
In 2014, I sat my Waterfowl Identification Test so I could acquire a duck shooters license and go out on to the water to rescue and take photos. I passed with an A. The test was criminally easy… it has to be I suppose to cater for the likes of the mushed brain men I sat with that day whilst taking the test. Hunters do not look at what ducks they are allowed and not allowed to shoot, they shoot anything. Most of the time, they have been drinking all night before, so they couldn’t identify their own hand let alone a freckled duck.
Anything is fair game to kill if you are a hunter….because you think the world is your own.
Fined and escorted from the wetlands for wanting to help injured birds.
Our government supports and cushions these bully members of the human race.
Good people do not kill anyone.
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
Arwen is the princess of our flock. No one can deny her beauty. She is named after Arwen the elven princess in Lord Of The Rings because of her unparalleled beauty. Arwen has never really liked humans very much, she prefers to keep to herself and spend time with her chicken friends rather than with me.
Arwen was rescued in May 2013 from a battery cage farm in Gippsland. She was found starving on the floor with a group of other hens. The entire shed had been cleared of hens in cages. 80,000 18 month old hens had reach the end of their productive egg laying life in this farm and had been ripped out of their cages and thrown on a truck in the cold night air to be driven to the abattoir to be slaughtered. Arwen and her friends had obviously been thrown to the floor or had escaped the workers hands somehow and fell to the ground. They hid underneath the cage towers for many days without food or water and with broken wings and legs.
Depopulation happens at every single egg farm in the world whether it be a cage farm, a free range farm or a barn laid farm, all hens get sent off to slaughter at 18 months of age and replaced with young hens so that the farmer can get the maximum amount of eggs out of every single hen. Chickens can live up to ten years old.
Arwen was rescued with a bunch of other girls hiding under those cages. Some had legs so badly broken that they were euthanised at the vets, others had broken wings which healed after they came to live with me.
Arwen is beautiful, dignified, proud and a survivor of an incredibly cruel industry that does not believe that chickens are thinking, feelings beings.
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
The first thing I noticed was her comb, it was like a Queen’s crown, so I named her “Queen Victoria”. She mostly gets called “Queen Vic” or “Queenie”. She has always had a look of determination on her face, even when she first came out of her cage completely terrified, she still had her fierce determined look. She was rescued in January, 2013.
Queen Vic lived in a huge shed in a tiny cage with 5 other chickens for 18 months. At the end of this 18 months egg layers are deemed useless and are always slaughtered. This particular cage egg farm had a cafe attached to it and this particular farmer chose to sell these hens to the public at the end of their commercial egg laying life for $5 each. These girls are described as being “for the pot”. These girls are moved from the huge shed to a smaller room next to the cafe. All the blinds are down in this room so that the public cannot see that they are crammed into tiny cages awaiting someone to come along and pay $5 for them. No money changed hands when Queen Vic and her friends left that room. No one paid money for her or her friends because animals aren’t property to be bought and sold. Animals have their own intrinsic value.
Queen Vic came to Lefty’s Place and learnt how to forage in the earth, how to dustbathe, how to flap her wings and she became who she was born to be. She doesn’t follow anyone this girl, she is one hundred percent her own hen…not even Super Chicken interests her greatly! I’ll see her wandering around alone having a grand old time whilst the rest of the flock runs after Super Chicken.
She is earnest, determined, wilful, stubborn, independent, individual and completely brilliant. That’s Queen Victoria.
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
