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Storm

It was pouring on the drive to the abattoir. It was pouring when I walked in to the abattoir. It was pelting down as I took my camera out from under my jacket to start taking photos. The storm that night was just starting.
I walked past her in the crate a few times. I saw her, but I continued to take photos around the corner at girls in other crates. She stuck in my mind, so I went back and took some photos of her.

She had travelled many hours crammed in to a crate with roughly 30 other hens with no food or water, on a truck that was carrying thousands of egg laying hens. They were freezing. It was their first time out of the cage egg farm that is kept at the same temperature all year around. She was only 18 months old, but had been sent to her death because she no was no longer producing enough eggs to be deemed “profitable”.

I walked away from her again. Then five minutes later, I walked back. I took this photo and then we got her out of there.
Her name is Storm, because she was rescued on a stormy night. A night where I got soaked to the bone and her life started again.

When I chose to take Storm from the crate full of hens ex-commercial laying hens at the abattoir, it didn’t make me feel good, no, it made me feel despair – like it always does. When my friend pulled the crate draw out to rescue Storm, all the other girl’s heads popped up, in a uniformed cry for help. If I could take them all, I would. The feeling of walking away from thousands of sweet little souls who only want to live and leaving them to be slaughtered the next day scars my heart in a way I can’t explain to you.
We can’t rescue them all. There is just no possible way. They get slaughtered in their billions, all over the world. every single day. I can’t take them all, I struggle for funds caring for the ones I have.

The only way we can stop this is by stopping eating eggs and products with eggs in them. It’s the only way.

Storm now lives in Super Chicken’s flock and has realised she has a huge love of oats, dust baths and handsome roosters.
Not all chickens are this lucky. Most chickens suffer in disgusting farms without room to move, being bullied, without any medical attention. They are then sent to their deaths whilst completely terrified. No one sees them. No one is supposed to see them.
Choose to be kind.

Persephone

She was found one chilly September evening, clinging to life in a transport crate at the abattoir. Having spent 18 months in a battery cage, laying one egg a day for consumers, she then ended up in a crate waiting for death when she was no longer deemed “profitable”.
She had her head trapped in the side of the crate. She had absolutely no strength left in her. She was rescued.

She sat on my lap the whole car ride back to her new home (my friend’s house) and I was constantly checking if she was still alive. She was completely emaciated and so incredibly thirsty. I poured water in to my hand in the car and she weakly started to drink and from then on, she didn’t stop drinking. She was obsessed with water, she probably hadn’t had a drink for days.

Persephone’s beak would have affected her ability to eat the entire time she was in the cage egg farm. It had been cut so roughly, the bottom of her beak had been left too long and she found it difficult to eat. She was emaciated, not only from being starved before depopulation in the farm, but also because her beak was so terrible that she was unable to pick up enough food with it.

She was so weak and ill. She was taken to the vet and it was decided that she needed to have her beak trimmed quite dramatically for her to be able to eat and live a happy life. Phil at Burwood Bird Vet trimmed her beak and she went home to heal, recover and learn how to be a chicken.

Persephone spent the next few weeks living the life of a free chicken with my friend. She relished the heater that she shared with rescue hen, Xena, and got to experience days in the sun, the feel of dirt and the taste of grass. She got to experience the love of a human who desperately wanted her to live the life she was always meant to live. Persephone loved humans and craved affection, even after all the suffering humans had caused her.

Persophone left the world on September 25, 2016. Her body was just too weak and broken to continue. Her beautiful soul has travelled on to a place where she will always be free. She was loved for those few weeks and she knew that. She died with the dignity of being treated as an individual instead of being strung up by her feet and slaughtered in the most terrifying way.

All commercial egg layers end up at the abattoir – all of them.

Please remember this and Persephone when you are standing in front of the egg section at the supermarket.

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

Xena – Warrior Chicken

One Wednesday in August at dusk, me and a friend were driving home from catching up when we found ourselves behind a truck full of ex-battery hens headed for slaughter. This is not something I had ever seen, nor had she, so the only thing to do was follow this truck and follow we did. We followed the truck for a long time. We watched as feathers flew continually in to our windscreen. We pointed out the hens we could see who were struggling and trapped to each other, there were lots. It was one of those times that I did not have my camera with me. One of those rare times that I left my camera at home because nothing could possible need documenting during a catch up with a friend right? Wrong!

We followed the truck to a small chicken abattoir. The truck backed in and started unloading his crates. We waited a little while and then started rescuing hens. These poor girls had been unloaded in their crates and were to be left there overnight and be slaughtered in the morning. Each crate was jammed packed with hens. Each crate had several dead hens in it, they had died on the journey from being roughly handled and squashed in to the crates. My friend and I loaded the car with hens and left. Later that night, my friend returned with another friend and they continued to rescue hens. In total that night, 74 hens were rescued from that abattoir.

There was one hen who was found in a terrible situation. Xena was found with her leg caught between two extremely heavy crates. She had obviously fell out of the top of the pallet when the forklift took them off the truck. She had landed between crates and was stuck there hanging. She was hanging there for roughly 9 hours before my friends found her. It took a huge effort for those two friends to move the two incredibly heavy steel bars that were holding up crates of chickens. It took them a while, but they finally got her out. She was rushed home and given emergency critical care.

The photos below are from my friends phone when they found her hanging.

Xena visited the Burwood Bird Vet the next day and x-rays showed that she had a leg that was broken in several places and damage to her spine. It would require surgery to pin her leg together but first Xena had to be strong enough for surgery. Like all the other hens there that night, Xena was emaciated, weak and unwell. All of them would have been starved for several days (if not more) before depopulation started. These hens were all very young, younger than the usual 18 months of age that hens usually get depopulated at.

Xena at the vet.

Xena spent 2 weeks getting around the clock care from my friend. We were all terrified that she wouldn’t make it and that the decision would have to be made to put her to sleep. The warrior chicken’s next appointment showed miraculous healing however. Her leg and spine had started healing on their own! No surgery was needed because her body was healing itself. She will return to the vet for x-rays weekly, but it seems this fighter of a hen will live.

She survived the egg farm. She survived transport. She survived hanging 9 hours with her leg crushed. She survived the abattoir. This is one warrior chicken!

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

Bronte

Bronte used to live at a commercial caged egg farm in northern Victoria. The farmer got rid of all his hens, most likely due to closing down his business or due to early depopulation (these girls were a lot younger than the usual 18 month olds that get sent to slaughter), and sent all of his hens to slaughter. She was grabbed from her cage and put in to a tiny crate with about 40 other hens and then that crate was stacked on to a truck with thousands of other hens.

Bronte was squashed in to that crate on that truck for nearly 4 hours. Many of the hens around her died during the journey. When the truck arrived at the abattoir, the crates were unloaded and thousands of girls were left there all night in the freezing cold in crates until killing started at 6 am the next day.

Bronte was lucky, she was rescued that night ( August 17, 2016). She was rescued along with 73 other lucky hens. When I took her out of that crate at the abattoir, she screamed so loudly in terror that I had to get her out of there quite quickly. She was lucky. One in a millions who has been saved from the last line of horrors that egg laying hens go through.

Moss

I first met Moss when he was about a week old when a couple of friends dropped in and had a car full of rescued lambs and sheep. Once I gave Moss a cuddle, my mind started ticking over – Can we have another sheep? Can we afford it? Do I have enough pasture? As usual, my heart overruled my head.

Moss is named after Maurice Moss from the comedy series, “The IT Crowd”. He was surrended to Vic Lamb Rescue at 5 days old by a well meaning woman who had been feeding him powered cows milk. She had seen him and some other black lambs advertised on Gumtree by a farmer who was trying to sell them off or they would “become bait”. This kind hearted woman could only afford one lamb and that lamb was Moss.

You see, farmers have no use for black lambs, their wool is worth nothing, so they are often killed at birth (or as soon as the farmer sees them). They bring in no money therefore they are not allowed to live. They are useless to farmers. I overheard this conversation at an agricultural show once:
“Lambs with black wool are pretty much killed at birth. They aren’t worth a thing. Some women like to spin with it, but not much anymore. Black lambs really are useless”

This little black lamb was lucky. Vic Lamb Rescue managed to convince the kind woman to surrender Moss in to their care and now he is at Lefty’s Place. He has been exploring with his lamb friend Shadow since arrival. He is incredibly sweet and loves a cuddle.