Turlock Hens Emergency Rescue

Turlock hen Tilly

Turlock Hens Emergency Rescue

On February 24, Farm Sanctuary, Animal Place, and Harvest Home joined together to rescue hens at a factory farm in Modesto, CA, where 50,000 hens used for egg production had been abandoned and left to starve for two weeks.

National Shelter Director Susie Coston was on the ground with staff and volunteers providing care for the sick and weak hens. She wrote:

“We took just over 400 hens this week, some Leghorn and some Brown chickens. Thirty have not been able to stand without falling since I arrived… the Leghorns should weigh about four pounds, and all weighed less than one pound… They seem to take comfort in being given fluids and being hand-fed. Some of the sickest are pulling through. They are eating and drinking on their own after the first three days of fluids, tube feedings, injectable vitamins, and trying different types of foods… We’ve checked every one of the birds individually. They are coated with poultry mites; these cause anemia and are extremely debilitating to animals in such critical condition. Today all were treated, and the mite-coated feathers were trimmed out. Most of the girls are so exhausted and sick, not one has laid an egg yet. Even spent hens lay tons of eggs, so this is really unusual… they thrive on the sun, and they’ve been able to sunbathe for the first time in their lives!” Read Susie’s full report.

Turlock hens

In addition to rescuing hens and providing urgent and rehabilitative care, Farm Sanctuary is pressing for the owner of the factory farm to be charged with the maximum penalty under the law, including jail time. Read our letter to the District Attorney.

You can help with providing urgent and rehabilitative care for the hens by donating to our Emergency Rescue Fund.

Turlock hen Tilly

March 15, 2012: Update from the Field

Orland Shelter Director Tara Oresick has been overseeing the rehabilitation of the hundreds of hens with the help of our staff and volunteers. Tara writes:

During the first few days following the rescue, many of the hens needed fluids and tube feedings… some were even presenting signs of renal failure and shock. Unfortunately, for some of the hens, too much damage had been done — their frail bodies were shutting down.

By the end of the first week, however, most of the remaining hens really started to perk up, and they continue to grow stronger and more active each day. In the beginning, if we found a hen lying on her side, it was because she was too weak to stand. Now, if we find a hen on her side, it’s almost always because she’s dust bathing or basking in a beam of sunlight!

We still have about 25 hens in smaller, warmer pens we built in the barn. These hens were the weakest and needed the most individual care. Some have decided on their own that they are healthy enough to live with the main group,and they fly out of their pens to be with the other hens! Most will probably be strong enough to join the main flock in the coming days. Two weeks into rehabilitation, we are still treating all the hens for poultry mites. We will continue to check them regularly until we’re confident that the mites are gone.

On warm days, we open up the door to the yard. At first, no one wanted to go outside. Finally, one brave hen ventured out, followed by a few more. Now, every day, more of the hens seem interested in going outside to explore their new surroundings.

Vivian was one of the hens who needed the most care. She was very weak from lack of nutrients and water, but over the past two weeks she has improved significantly. Early on, she needed to be held and hand-fed in order to eat because she was too weak to stand and eat on her own. When she began to improve, we took her outside to see how she would respond to being in the sun and having dirt to scratch in. She was still weaker and less active than the others, but she was able to stand all by herself! And, if that wasn’t exciting enough, she then started grooming herself!

When I see Vivian or any of these beautiful hens grooming, dust bathing or running around flapping their wings, I have to remind myself that they are the same starved girls who we carried from the A&L Poultry warehouse. Their resilience is truly inspiring.

Arlene Turlock hen
Turlock Rescue - Update on hens' care
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Transcript

When our staff arrived the first morning in Turlock, we were there waiting for our volunteers. There were people that were actually working at the farms. The people that were working at the farms to remove the birds included animal control officers, but also included workers that they had hired to take the birds out. There were a lot of dead birds, obviously, in the facility.


The scene inside, I'm sure, was very gruesome because of the number of dead animals. And they had removed a lot. But the smells, I'm sure, were really intense. We had crates. We had to have poultry crates. They were asking for those instead of anything else. So we actually used some poultry crates from some of the other rescues, like Animal Place and Harvest Home.


As soon as we had loaded up about 450 birds, we took those birds back to Orland. And we wanted to get them back as quickly as possible to make sure we could continue doing fluids, continue doing anything like tube feeding, any antibiotics that were necessary, just to make sure that they were healthy and stable.


The first group, when we took them out of the carriers and they put them into the main barn-- we had bowls and bowls of water everywhere because we knew they were dehydrated. And a lot of the birds would run over to the water and drink, and drink, and drink. And they were actually throwing their heads back, and water splashing everywhere. And it was like they were really enjoying the water. It must have felt so incredible to drink after all that time.


The same with the food. We gave them the pellets that they were going to eat, and they ate, and ate, and ate, as much as they could eat. And their little crops were really full. And we had to really watch because we didn't want anybody to overeat. But there was such an obvious enjoyment and satisfaction with getting food and water after all that time. And it was really amazing to see.


A lot of the birds, once they would drink and once they would eat, would just go fall asleep. They were so exhausted. Because these are birds, again, that are just so depleted that they needed that food and they needed that water. And they took as much as they could do, and then they just needed to rest. But it was an incredible thing to get to watch.


The first time that we allowed the birds outside access, we actually open the doors and they wouldn't go outside. They just didn't go. They went to the threshold. A couple of them peeked out. Most of them went right back in. So we actually pushed them out the door. And once we did that, it was really incredible because they've never been outside. So they are very, very cautious when they first go out. They don't run out. They're not like, oh, this is great.


They get outside. They're touching the ground for the first time. What these birds instinctually do is they eat little pieces of gravel or grit. It goes in their crop. It helps with their digestion. It's a very natural behavior for them. A lot of them just plopped down, flat out in the sun, and stretched out as far as they could. Going outside to them must have been the most amazing experience, just to look up in the sky and see the sun and have this free, open space and fresh air.


The birds that we have now are currently very stable. 50 of them have gone to a home. The rest of them are really actually doing very well. They're eating on their own, and they're drinking on their own. We're still doing some hand feeding and some fluids with them. But they are strong enough that they're walking around.


We actually had a few-- because we had boxes for the different groups that were sick. We had a few that, as they got better, started jumping out of the boxes so they could hang out with the main flock, which was really nice to see, because it shows they're getting much, much stronger.


One of the things that we're seeing with the birds is a lot of dust bathing. These are all things, too-- you have to remember, that these birds have never, ever been able to do their natural behaviors. So one of the things we saw when they first came was them flapping their wings. The other thing we saw-- and they do it all the time now-- is they'll run straight across the barn as fast as they can and flap, flap, flap their wings really hard, because they're able to do that for the first time.


So we're seeing the birds that are the healthiest running, flapping their wings, sunbathing, like when the sun comes into the barn, because the whole wall comes down on this barn. The sun will come in, and they all just go and any piece of sunlight. They all just lay in that sun because these are birds that have never been allowed to be in the sun.


They need sun, just like we need sun. They thrive on sun. They thrive on fresh air. They thrive on all the things that we thrive on. These are very lucky birds. They're very, very happy being able to go outside and enjoy being a chicken.
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