Our Sweets

 

In the dark of the factory farm shed, the rescuers could smell only death. The shed was empty. All the chickens in this particular shed had been depopulated. What this means is the hens were at the end of their “productive egg laying life”. This happens at only 18 months of age. An entire shed of around 70,000 chickens had been ripped out of their cages, some had been thrown to the floor, some had escaped the clutches of human hands by jumping to their deaths and the rest were loaded roughly into a truck headed for slaughter. The shed was now empty except for a few escapees who hid on the floor under the cages, destined for death from thirst and starvation. Each cage now sat empty awaiting the new chickens who were about to experience the horror of being a caged hen. All cages were empty bar one. One lonely, sad hen stood in a cage surrounded by other empty cages which sat on thousands apon thousands of other empty cages. This hen had been missed in the depopulation process and had been left to starve to death alone in that cage. The rescuers picked her up and took her home.

When I was asked if I could look after this lonely, sad hen, she was described as “depressed, withdrawn and not eating”. When I first saw her she was buried down in the hay of her carry case so low that I could barely see her. She had her head tucked into her body and  she was so heartachingly sad. She had lost the will to live.  She had one droopy and broken wing and was incredibly sore and sensitive all over her body. She may have been thrown against the sides of the cage or thrown onto the ground and lifted back into the cage. Whatever happened, she was in a bad way. She was incredibly smelly. She smelt like death. Very soon this sad little girl began to eat again. When she started eating, she could not be stopped. Who knows how long she had been without food in that shed, but she ate non stop for a day. We named her “Sweets”.

Sweets is our sweet fairy hen. She enjoys the sky, the sun and the earth and loves food with a passion. She is a people’s hen, she loves other chickens, but loves to be with people. She prefers to be hand fed rather than eat food off the  ground and she will follow you everywhere.  She looks at everything with such delight and such innocence. She is the sweetest hen you’ll ever meet and that’s why her name is “Sweets”. She will sit with you and look lovingly into your face. Sometimes she will softly peck you on the face, but not hard, it’s just like a kiss.

To think this beautiful, loving little fairy hen would have starved to death in a dark cage all alone makes my heart ache and my eyes water. How we love our Sweets. The thought of the billions of other special, unique, precious birds suffering and dying just because we consume their eggs is a nightmare and it’s a nightmare which keeps me awake at night. I am haunted by these places.

In January 2014, Sweets once again had to fight for her life. She was diagnosed with having severe egg yolk peritonitis which developed from her having an ectopic egg stuck in her body. We had to make a decision to either let Sweets go or put her through surgery, where she had a very slim chance of surviving. Through tears, we chose to put her through surgery. I kissed her goodbye and walked out crying thinking I’d never see her again. Four hours later, the call came to tell me that she had survived. She was dubbed “miracle chicken” at the vet surgery because she miraculously pulled through. Her uterus had been damaged in the surgery, so Sweets was unable to lay eggs any longer. If she lays eggs, she will die. She had a hormone chip inserted into her neck to stop her producing eggs and to keep her alive. What came next was months of intense nursing on my and my sister’s behalf. Each hour she needed subcutaneous fluid injections, force feeding and crop massaging. Long days and longer nights where I thought I’d wake up to her dead. One month after surgery, she again developed egg yolk peritonitis and again had to have surgery. Amazingly, yet again, she woke and lived. This girl wants to live. That’s all she wants and she won’t give up. Ever.

Please choose kindly. Don’t eat eggs.

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On the 26th of March, 2016 at 8.30am, Sweets died in my arms. This is what I wrote about it:

“What’s the point of all this?” she said as she flicked through my images from a factory farm. I sat there in her office during that strange meeting and heard her say again,“What’s the point? What do you do this for?”…..

Whenever I lose an animal, these are the words I say to myself – ‘What’s the point?”. The first few days after I lose an animal I have loved, I agonize over what went wrong and I constantly say in my head, “What’s the point?”. After I lose an animal that has particularly touched my heart, I always consider stopping caring for animals. I consider leaving it all behind. This is what I have been thinking since Sweets died in my arms on Saturday morning. I thought perhaps there is happiness out there for me that doesn’t involve such heartbreak, but in the end, I always know that this is who I am. I was born to care for animals and if I were to walk away from it, I would be a shell of a person.

Sweets taught me so much. She taught me about how to really care for chickens. I was forced to research chicken health for endless hours to help her live a happy life. She had two surgeries for egg yolk peritonitis in her time and my sister and I nursed her through. She had a weak immune system and would often get sick, but again, we always nursed her through. She never gave up. She never told me she wanted to die in all those years of nursing her through things. She wanted to live and she would surprise us all by getting up every single time and keep having a ball until the next time she started looking a bit off.

Sweets had to have hormone implants continually after her surgery. Her uterus was damaged during surgery and if she was allowed to lay eggs, she would end up dying. She was a regular at the vets and everyone there would call her the “miracle chicken”. Late last year the implants stop working in her, she had become immune to them. My options were to get her put to sleep, get massive surgery on her to remove her ovary (she’d most likely die) or try some natural therapies. I chose the natural therapies with the knowledge that whenever she asked me to, I would let her leave the world. Sweets and I got through for nearly four months happily. Her health was improving, until Good Friday. She left the world cradled in my arms on Easter Saturday morning.

She fought so hard to live. Living was everything to Sweets. She hurdled obstacle after obstacle to live in this world, but in the end it was a body that was made to produce non-stop eggs that killed her. I hate eggs. I hate eggs for taking the lives of these beautiful, clever girls who love the earth more than we do. Please don’t talk to me about how you love your chickens and the eggs they provide you, I don’t want to know, I only want to know about your chickens. I hate eggs.

How can a little chicken be missed so much already? I don’t know, but she has taken a big chunk of my heart with her. I suppose that chunk will fill up again one day maybe (but maybe not), but at the moment my special needs flock is very empty without her jealous grumbles at Bobby and her insatiable appetite for oats and her little fairy chicken run that made us all smile.

Thanks for showing us all how much chickens want to live in this world Miss Chips and just how determined one little, broken bodied hen can be to stay in it.

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