Mrs Gideon

She came from a Werribee battery egg farm. She had served her 18 months in a tiny cage with 5 other chickens and was sent to the room where they sell “spent” hens to the public for things like soup. She waited in a cage in that room with thousands of other hens. The room was right next door to a cafe that operated on the property. People would come in and get their morning coffee and eggs for breakfast – whilst in the next room, thousands of starving, featherless hens who laid those eggs waited for their next ticket to death.

She was rescued by a brave person who also saved ten other sickly, featherless girls at the same time. They all made the journey to Lefty’s Place the next day.

Poor Mrs Gideon had such terribly short beak. All hens who are born into the commercial egg laying industry are de-beaked. Apparently de-beaking helps prevent hens from causing serious injury to each other whilst they are locked up and frustrated in tiny cages of a battery egg farm or when they are living in a flock of 60,000 free range hens who have to fight to keep their place in the hierarchy every single day. De-beaking is done without any pain relief. De-beaking makes it difficult for hens to preen themselves properly and makes it difficult for them to eat certain foods. De-beaking is incredibly cruel.

Mrs Gideon was named after a character from the comedy series, “The Mighty Boosh”.
She left this world late 2013. I hope the freedom she had in the last years of her life outweighed the misery of the first few years she had. I hope.

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