Animal Place

A couple days ago, we showed you an amazing thing - one of the rescued hens seeing dirt, grass and the sun for the first time. As things have settled down a little, I wanted to share with you what most of the hens looked like when they first arrived.

She can barely hold her head up, and she has lost 50% of her body weight.

When we showed her food, she did not know what to do. It had been so long since she had eaten. This was true for many of the hens. Some had to be force-fed and given fluids to counteract the side effects of dehydration and malnourishment.

Victory! After carefully guiding this little hen to a special mash of feed, she has finally figured out what it’s for!

It is hard to convey how powerful this moment is. We had watched her sisters and friends be gassed. We had known there was a possibility many of the hens who were pulled would not survive. And we knew this hen had not eaten food in over two weeks and was at risk of losing her life.

Afterwards, we cleaned up her comb and settled her down next to another rescued hen. The hen next to her is one of the lucky 15 pulled from the manure pit by one of our staff members (their story coming soon) and taken to Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary.

She is still alive and slowly recovering.