By Ariana Huemer | Project Leader
“I saw at least saw 30 kids running around the petting zoo with no parents … Some even started throwing things at the roosters that ended up in the trees ... Even the beautiful peacocks [who] were out, and kids started throwing things at them, went into hiding”
A quick perusal of the online reviews for the San Jose, Ca., "farm park” from where Charlie and his little flock of hens escaped last year gives a telling glimpse into a growing welfare crisis for pet chickens and ducks.
Animal abandonment is usually thought of as an issue that affects primarily dogs and cats. But its impact on pet ducks and chickens is equally, if not more so, profound -- in part because so many people will walk straight past a suffering bird and see nothing wrong.
And at no time of the year is this more apparent than now. As the novelty of spring ducklings and chicks begins to wane, people look to unload messy ducks and non-laying chickens every fall.
"They say she found Maiz laying behind a trash can in front of the red barn," read one of the first pleas for help. "She was being attacked by another hen. She was visible to people walking past just looking not helping."
Maiz was incredibly lucky because after untold numbers of people walked past her (and undoubtedly other birds in distress), it was a kind-hearted young girl who finally rescued her from a brutal death. At their home, the family resuscitated her with food and water, and then they reached out to Hen Harbor.
Continuing Crisis
Fast forward one year, and another park visitor shows up at the sanctuary cradling a tiny, trembling bird who can barely stand, much less open his eyes. He's so small that he looks more like a scrawny dove than a chicken. But when Snowy starts perking up in the hospital, it's clear that he's a rooster (albeit a very tiny, sick one).
Snowy [video] was not the first arrival of this fall, nor will he likely be the last. Alongside Snowy in our bird hospital area is a small flock of tiny hens, all suffering scaly leg mites so severe that their feet are either deformed or missing completely. Before them came a spate of injured roosters and two ancient, arthritic hens who would have been torn apart by predators the first night they were abandoned.
Even now, scores of other discarded backyard chickens wander through the parking lot and along the stretch of sidewalk adjacent to the park in San Jose -- all but doomed to perish slowly from starvation, injury, illness or predation. And no doubt the following week, a new group of birds will have been dumped, replacing the current flock. As one young park visitor observed, "Every time you come here, you never see the same birds."
Who's Responsible?
For the origins of the current pet-poultry dumping crisis, look no further than your local feed store, school hatching project, or backyard breeder. For every female chick hatched to be kept as an egg-laying hen, there is an unwanted male chick. In suburban settings, the sound of the young rooster's first early-morning song sets off a panic that usually ends with his being "set free" (perhaps with a group of older, non-laying hens) in a park, road side, or hiking path.
Just last month, we took in seven sickly chicks from a local feed store's "fall chick event" (a new adjunct to the ever-popular "spring chick event") -- which, given the miserable outcome for so many pet poultry, seems like an animal welfare disaster waiting to happen.
It's a potential disaster in terms of not only the grim futures that await most birds bought on impulse, but also for the welfare of the chicks populating the "for sale" display bins currently. After being shipped alive in the mail as day-old babies, the chicks endure levels of stress that tax their immune systems and make them more susceptible to illnesses that can kill fragile baby birds.
Because feed-store employees are woefully unprepared (or unwilling) to administer veterinary care, most of the ailing baby birds languish in a back room waiting to die. (When the motive is profit, spending money on veterinary care for a $2 chick is not an option..)
It is a rare (and lucky!) bird indeed who finds himself being handed off to a an animal sanctuary or other knowledgeable caregiver to be nursed back to health. At Hen Harbor, six of the seven sickly feed-store chicks have not only survived but thrived under the care of their adoptive mother hens. Running around in a natural setting under the guidance of their mothers, they are looking better than they ever could have as motherless chicks sitting in a box under a heat lamp.
On The Road to Freedom
Things are also looking up for a dozen-plus recently-rescued egg-industry hens. Instead of being slaughtered alongside tens of thousands of their peers at the age of 18 months, a lucky twist of fate brought them to Hen Harbor. .
After recuperating at the sanctuary for a few weeks, the still-raggedy looking bunch fell asleep inside a van one September night and woke up 8 hours later at their new, verdant digs in Oregon!
This adopton to our friends at Sanctuary One in Ore., is part of our larger goal to normalize the concept of chickens as awesome companions, not food sources. Instilling the"adopt, don't shop" message into the public mind is a key part of guiding a caretaking paradigm toward one based more on respect than exploitation.
We look forward to a continued collaboration with adopters, to create a culture that values these clucky, plucky birds as the amazing individuals they truly are!
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