Maureen

Maureen was love personified. Born into the egg industry, this darling angel of a bird started her life as a commodity. Maureen lived the first two years of her life confined to a tiny cage in a CAFO in Iowa. In May 2020, Maureen was reaching the end of her “productivity” and was scheduled to be slaughtered. But COVID-19 had disrupted the slaughter system, leaving hundreds of thousands of chickens languishing in filthy cages without food or drinking water.

After we learned about the grim situation in the CAFO, we contacted the farm and offered to help. Thankfully, we were granted permission to rescue as many birds as we could. When we asked how many birds there were, we were not prepared for the staggering answer: 140,000 hens were slowly dying in the CAFO. We immediately sprang into action, contacting all of the sanctuaries we knew and then rushing to the CAFO to begin the rescue effort. Our friends from Barn Sanctuary met us there, and we joined forces to liberate hens from what we quickly learned was hell on earth.

Upon entering the CAFO, we realized that the situation was dire. In typical CAFO fashion, the birds were packed into small battery cages, sometimes up to 10 birds per cage. In every single cage, there was at least one deceased hen—trampled to death by her terrified companions and in some stage of decay. The filthy rows of tightly packed cages smelled pungently of urine, feces, decomposition, and fear.

To our horror, as we gently retrieved frail hens from their cages, the CAFO workers continued to grab birds from their cages—by the throat, wings, and feet—shoving them into boxes connected to a CO2 machine, through which their lives were extinguished. We witnessed a mass killing of the innocent.

When we got our rescued hens back to the sanctuary, we realized the full extent of the abuse they had endured. They had lived their entire lives without sunlight, which caused a whole host of health issues. Maureen’s comb was so massively overgrown due to her unnatural hormone levels and lack of sunlight that she couldn’t even lift her sweet head. Maureen’s neck was buckling under the weight of her comb, causing what we feared could be permanent disfigurement and pain.

Thankfully, with time, sunshine, and a whole lot of love, Maureen’s comb shrank in size, and her quality of life improved as a result. Maureen came from one of the worst situations we had ever seen, yet from the first moment she entered our lives, she trusted us completely. She loved to be held and was a deeply emotional individual—she nestled right into our arms for afternoon naps. Maureen passed away, but she left an indelible mark on our hearts with her resilience and trust.