Hedwig

In a sea of 60,000 white baby broiler chicks (chickens bred for meat) stood Hedwig. Her beautiful grey feathers shone out against the white chickens and her sweet face was full of innocence. At one week old she was already enormous compared to a normal chick. You see, broiler chickens are chickens selectively bred for meat. The are selectively bred to grow as huge as possible in the shortest amount of time possible. Broiler chicks are roughly picked up from inside the sheds at between 5-7 weeks old, thrown onto a truck and sent to be slaughtered. So, when you are buying your chicken breasts, kfc or roast chicken for dinner, keep in mind that that individual bird was a terrified baby who only wanted some safety and love from a mother figure, but was denied it.

Hedwig was rescued from that broiler chicken farm with two other oddly coloured chickens, two boys, one who I named “Mogwai” and the other who I named “Colonel Eagle”. These three were thicks as thieves. The best of friends who were so excited to spend their lives being chickens together, the tragedy of their wish to grow old together was (thankfully) unknown to them. Broiler chickens have an incredibly short lifespan due to selective breeding. For a broiler chicken to live one year is an achievement indeed. Most broilers end up dying of heart failure and conditions directly related to their heart or directly related to their enormous size.

I named her Hedwig after the owl in Harry Potter because she was so beautiful and her feathers looked just like an owls. She was the sweetest chicken. She was very interested in being one of the gang. She loved to hang out with the ex-battery hens and pretended she was one of them. She would climb up to the perches with the ex-commercial chickens until she got too big to continue to get up there.

We found her passed away in December, 2013 at only 6 months old. A sweet young hen who wanted to live just like all her ex-battery sisters, but was bound to death due to her selective breeding.

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