Dawn

We found her in April 2013, huddling under the towers of the battery egg cages. She stood there standing amongst the bodies of other hens who had died of starvation on the ground. The bodies who had slowly turned to dust surrounded her. She could have ended up on the floor in a few ways, but the most likely is that she was taken out of the cage by a worker who thought she was ill/dying and thrown to the floor.

The amount of dead hens in this shed was shocking. The air actually smelt of death. Our clothes were permeated with the smell of death. My friend got on her stomach and shuffle under the cages and grabbed her. She was frail, had a broken wing and was terrified. Two weeks later, this entire shed of hens (80,000 hens) were denied food for up to two weeks before they were taken out of their cages and sent to slaughter on a truck in the middle of a freezing night in early May.

I named her Dawn, mainly because she could now see the dawn every single day.

Dawny is such a sweet, friendly girl. She is a big talker who is very interested in my daily chores and likes to follow me around checking on my progress and being a general inspector of my work.

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