Battery Chickens Rescued, Their Life Before and After

Their Story on Video

I’m not one to post about animal abuse, nor am I particularly interested in reading about it on others. I’m not an activist or a vegan, and I do not support the extremists of the Peta Organization.  But,  I do believe all living things deserve to be comfortable and treated with kindness.  I keep a variety of livestock animals on my little farm, call my companion animals pets, and do right by all of them the best I can.

Three days ago I was researching on what happens to the battery hens when they are no longer useful as layers. Where do they go? After a chicken’s first 1 1/2 years of life, her egg production is reduced. Does this mean her life is nothing more than a year or so in a cage before she is slaughtered?  Yes. This is indeed disturbing, but this is also where your dog and cat’s food is coming from.  Do I like to think about this? Of course not. But it’s the reality of the food chain,  and one way or another, the meat on our barbeque and in our pet’s dishes has to come from somewhere.

Although disturbing to think about where and how food finds its way to our kitchen table, it doesn’t concern me near as much as the process of production.  Again, all living things deserve to be comfortable and treated with kindness.

I watched a video three days ago on battery chickens and decided NOT to post it, even though it had a happy ending. But I haven’t been able to forget what I saw, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to post it. Three days ago I missed the message in that video,  the one asking for help from somebody to spread awareness… that somebody was me.

I did a little research, and I must say, it was an eye-opener indeed. This is what I found:

The barren battery cage was banned in the EU on 01 January 2012. These cages typically held 4 to 5 hens but in other countries around the world they are still legal and some may house as many as 6 to 8 birds. The space allowance per bird in the barren battery cage holding 4 to 5 hens is less than an A4 sheet of paper, and the height is only just enough to allow the hen to stand upright. In countries where there may be 8 birds, such as the US, the space allowance per hen is sometimes only half as much.

I don’t know what to do about the unfair treatment of chickens, for now the first step is merely to share what I have learned.  Maybe through awareness, we can all somehow make a difference.  Below is the story of a few chickens that were rescued from a battery farm… and their happy ever after.

Who are the people running these battery farms, and how on earth do they live with themselves?

Video