Rebel Rebel, you’ve torn your dress
Rebel Rebel, your face is a mess
Rebel Rebel, how could they know?
Rebel Rebel, I love you so
She was named after a David Bowie song because that’s exactly who she is, she is a complete Rebel. When there’s a chicken on the wrong side of the fence – it’s always Rebel Rebel. When there’s a chicken in the vegie patch – it’s always Rebel Rebel. When there’s a chicken on the roof – it’s Rebel Rebel. When there’s a chicken standing in a food bowl – it’s Rebel Rebel. It’s always Rebel Rebel. Her passion for life is overwhelming. She doesn’t want to be left behind, she doesn’t want to be left out and she certainly doesn’t want to be locked in a small cage in a shed with 5 other hens.
Rebel Rebel came from a disgusting battery cage farm in Gippsland, Victoria in mid 2013. She was rescued after the shed she had lived in had been depopulated. She was left behind after the 80,000 hens in that one shed were ripped out of their cages, thrown on a truck and sent to slaughter. She and her friends hid whilst the workers grabbed her friends from out of the cages above her. She crouched under the cages with a broken wing and a body that was giving up. She had no water and no food and had been like that for quite some time. Before farmers depopulate their chicken sheds, they actually deprive the hens of food, sometimes for weeks.
The farm floor that Rebel Rebel was found on.One of the dead hens on the floor of the farm.
Rebel Rebel was so lucky to have been found and rescued with some of her friends who were also left to die on the floor. She came to live with us and even with her sickly body with her broken wing, all she wanted to do was explore and live life to the fullest. Chickens love life, they just love it. Their entire happiness is based on being connected to the earth. If you’ve watched a chicken foraging with passion or dustbathing or sunbaking you will know how much the earth means to the them. To take the sky and the earth and the grass away from these beautiful little birds is so incredibly cruel. We don’t need eggs, but these chickens need the earth.
Rebel Rebel will continue to defy the rules of Lefty’s Place and be found in places she shouldn’t go. No one tells Rebel Rebel what to do. This is her life and she’s now free.
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
Righty – leader, father and protector. That’s our Righty.
Righty arrived in August 2011. He came from a sheep farmer on the outskirts of town. He was heard talking in the pub about two wethers he was going to take to the sales the next day because they were “useless”. A hand was put up, the words “I will take them” were uttered and the next day two scared, young sheep were standing in our yard. The farmer had nicknames for them, one was called, “Crazy Eyes” because he had some sort of neurological problem and the other was called, “Albert” because he was as smart as Albert Einstein. “Crazy Eyes” was renamed “Lefty” and “Albert” was renamed “Righty”. Lefty and Righty were inseperable, like brothers they were the best of friends. Both had been hand reared by the farmer’s wife as they had both been orphaned at birth. Life ambled on for these two soul brothers. New sheep joined the flock and Righty welcomed everyone with open arms and a protective nod, whilst Lefty looked them up and down and made sure they knew their place.
Lefty and Righty. Best Friends.Lefty and Righty’s last photo together.
In January, 2013, we unexpectedly lost Lefty. He died one boiling hot afternoon. I found Righty calling for Lefty the next day so I took him around to where Lefty was and let him sniff Lefty’s body. He gently sniffed Lefty’s face and then turned to look at me. He looked at me with such sadness in his eyes as if to say “No? Please no”. The following weeks were incredibly difficult for our clever boy. He grieved terribly for his best friend. He had no interest in anything. He wouldn’t baa, not even for food. In time he got himself up again, but he has never developed another friendship with a sheep like he had with Lefty.
Righty grieved terribly.
In April 2013, two dogs entered our property and attacked our small flock of sheep. Righty was pulled down by the two Malamutes by his neck and his rump. We fortunately heard the attack because our elderly Jack Russell alerted us to it. Putting ourselves between the dogs and the sheep, we finally warded them off. Righty had extensive wounds all around his neck and on his rump. He was in a bad way. The vet gave him ten percent chance of pulling through. Dogs attacks on sheep are almost always fatal. Infection from the dog bites sets in incredibly quickly and most sheep die within a few days. We were determined to give Righty a chance. He had antibiotics and pain injections daily. He was sprayed with ointment every single hour to prevent any fly strike or extra infection enter his wounds. Our big, beautiful Righty fought through that horrific attack and is still with us today.
Righty the morning after being mauled.Righty’s neck had to be completely sewn back together after the dogs ripped it apart.
These days, Righty is flock leader. He is the father figure to all of our other sheep. When someone new arrives, it’s always Righty who welcomes them and protects them from the head butts of the other flock members.
Righty meets Trouble.
Just as the sun disappears behind the hill, Righty walks around the property calling his family to come together for the night. The flock often spreads out during the late hours of the day because of their grazing preferences, so it’s Righty’s job, as head of the flock and father figure, to call everybody together as the dark sets in.
Righty with Wrinkles.
Righty is, without a doubt, a King of sheep.
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
At 12.30pm on January 30th, 2015 I received a phone call. The caller was upset, she said “This place is disgusting Tam. There’s swarms of flies everywhere. There’s pig skeletons. It’s horrific”. I hung up with a heavy heart with images of intensive piggeries I’d visited in the past in my mind. Ten minutes later I got another call – “I’m on the way to your house. I have a pig. She’s so sick”.
Scully at the farm. She is the pig huddled in between the other sows. You can clearly see all of her ribs and body covered with flies.
I looked into the back seat of the car to see a pale, emaciated pig looking back at me. She had sores all over her body. She had massive wounds on each ear. She was incredibly small for her age. She had a septic, open wound on her back left hock. Her ribs were showing. Even though she felt so incredibly sick, she still acknowledged me when I patted her and then she looked up to the sky and smiled.
My friend carried her into the vet consultation room that they had prepared just for us. Her first tentative steps on the floor made her slightly confused because of it’s slippery texture, but she didn’t take long to get used to it. She was off wandering around the room, looking under the desk and checking out the bin before we knew it. She was quite wary of us at first. She looked at us with a querying looking in her eyes and wasn’t too happy to have us put her hands out to her. She walked around, keeping a close eye on us for about ten minutes and then all of a sudden she decided that we were ok, that we weren’t going to hurt her and that she would accept our offer of friendship. Her decision then saw her start giving us kisses with her snout. For such an abused, sickly pig to trust us so quickly was heart warming and a testament to how clever these animals are and how their ability to read energy is so very strong.
Her wounds were dressed. She was treated for worms and mange. She was given heavy duty antibiotics and she was booked in for a full body check over under anaesthetic in two days time. Her prognosis was “All we can do is try. We’ll try” but it was said with an undertone of “please be prepared, she’s an incredibly sick little pig”.
Scully’s ear wounds getting treated.Scully’s left hock was severely infected and swollen and was left untreated at the farm.
On the way home she sparked up considerably and the decision was made to put the child locks on the doors of the car because she was so smart that she was trying to open the doors. We did notice that she would take food, but was unable to actually swallow it. Whilst she was under anaesthetic a few days later, the vet found a large tumour in her throat. Whether it was malignant or benign was unknown at that stage. She was put on medication in hope it would shrink. She then started to eat food and really enjoy it.
Scully in the car.
She spent the next four days learning about her new life, making friends and being loved. She learnt how to open every door in the house. She taught her carer how to know she was asking for food. Her carer expressed the following thoughts about Scully –
“The thing that really stands out for me was how incredibly human-like she was in her intelligence, awareness and emotions. It seems sadly strange that we spend so much time wondering if we’re the only intelligent creatures in the universe, and yet we co-exist on this earth with animals like pigs. She recognised there was a verbal communication barrier between us, so she taught me how to understand her and her needs. Everything else was conveyed with tenderness and affection. She loved the other animals – she played with the kitten as we would. She recognised he was only a baby and she adjusted her behaviour to play with him as an adult would a child. She learnt very quickly how to manipulate and navigate through her environment. I didn’t teach her. She learnt – or it appeared obvious to her. “
Early on a Tuesday morning ( February 4, 2015) Scully left the world unexpectedly. Her little body just couldn’t cope and couldn’t go on. The vet surmised that she died from a heart attack, which would have come about from internal bleeding which was going on for some time and the huge infection her body was trying to fight. In her 4.5 days of freedom she experienced more than any farmed pig ever does. She charmed the world.
Right now, in Australia, more than 5 million pigs are trapped in intensive piggeries. Each one of these pigs is an individual just like Scully was. How can you help? Stop purchasing animal products. These farms exist directly because of consumer demand. Please choose kindness when you eat. You don’t need to eat individuals like Scully. They want to live.
To view the lives of pigs who live in intensive piggeries, please look through my series “A Pig’s Life”
Please don’t use my images without permission. All images are Copyright Tamara Kenneally
All I ever wanted to do was to be surrounded by animals, they tell you exactly who they are through their eyes and their behaviour.
Humans create so much pain for so many animals and without a voice they can’t tell their stories. I try to speak for them through my images.
I produce bodies of work which look at animal issues whilst also portraying the beauty of the animal.
I like to represent my subjects as the individual souls and personalities they are.
All animals are worthy of a happy, enriched life. All of them. The dog chained up in the backyard. The chicken at the factory farm. The bird in the cage. The tiger at the zoo.The pig in the sow stall. All of them.
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 specialises in slaughtering spent dairy cows to be turned into mince meat for the American fast food industry. 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.
This is dairy.
I will never forget her asking us for help. Never.
