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Last summer, I had the privilege of undertaking an internship with Farm Sanctuary, one of the oldest and largest farmed animal shelters in existence today. It was, without a doubt, one of the best things I’ve ever done – the experience of a month (not nearly long enough!) spent caring for and learning about the farmed animals who live there (cows, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys, and even a few donkeys and alpacas!) was truly life-changing. So, it would be foolish to think I could encapsulate my whole experience in just one short blog post; while I was there I kept a diary that ended up filling two whole notebooks! Therefore, I’m going to tell you about one very special animal who lives there, and what I learned of her story.
She is a hen, and her name is Azula (Pictured on the left) - named after the Legend of Korra character, so I am told, because they took her in with many other hens and let that month’s interns choose a theme for names! As anyone who is at all familiar with chickens (or indeed images from meat production) will be able to tell you, she is a Cornish cross, otherwise known as a broiler hen, meaning that she was bred to be eaten. As a result, she is quite a lot larger than other types of hens at the sanctuary, and has some special needs. Broiler hens have to be kept on a strictly monitored diet to prevent excessive weight gain, because unlike other hens who will stop eating when their nutritional needs are fulfilled, broilers have been selectively bred to eat and eat and eat in order to promote as much weight gain as possible in as short a time as possible, saving the farmer money. In fact, a commercial hen like Azula would grow to her size in about 56 days, after which they would be sent to slaughter.
One of the main duties I undertook at Farm Sanctuary was helping to look after sick birds at Melrose Small Animal Hospital onsite. So, if I got to know a bird really well, it was usually because they were kept in one of the pens at Melrose because their health was being monitored – and this is exactly how I met Azula. She was suffering from paralysis of some kind: she could not stand or walk, and seemed to have lost all use of her legs. In an attempt at diagnosis, Shelter Director (and hero of mine) Suzie Coston picked Azula up and turned her round to see if her legs had full range of motion; in distress at the handling, Azula kicked her legs furiously! So she could move them when relying on instinct alone – was the issue psychological? Broiler hens are known to lose use of their legs in later life because they are bred to increase in size so much that their bodies can’t support them – but this didn’t seem to be what was happening to Azula…
Not being a vet myself, I simply followed instructions and tried to care for the immobilised hen as best as I could. We set her up a cage and wrapped her in a set of comfy towels – which we affectionately called her ‘towel doughnut’ – to keep her upright, and feeling safe and secure. We put her food bowl on top of some blocks so that she could still reach it, and set up a fan outside the cage to keep her cool. The worst part was when she would suddenly get panicked: either through overheating, or because of some internal crisis best known to herself, she would start open-mouth breathing and then, if it didn’t subside, she would frantically flap her wings around, potentially injuring herself and leaving her in an uncomfortable position she couldn’t get up from. We always did our best to calm her, but I can’t imagine the frustration and pain Azula went through, unable to follow even the most basic instincts of perching and foraging for food.
As the course of medication progressed (the caregivers at Farm Sanctuary told me they gave her three different medications, one of which was a dose of Vitamin E, and the others too scientific-sounding for me to remember!) she was given extra challenges to try and get better: as a sort of physical therapy, the caregivers put her in a “chicken sling” – what was essentially a tote bag with holes cut in it for her legs. When Azula was inside the sling, they hung it up from the doorframe so that she could be suspended at standing height, keeping her in a standing position without putting too much weight on her legs – this would both give her practise standing and stop her muscles from atrophying.
And then it was finally decided we should give her some time outside. Just outside the hospital there are some small outdoor pens, to give her a taste of the grass and sunshine – even though she could only sit in one corner of the cage, she loved to eat the grass and watch passers-by. I would always greet her as I went past, having developed an affection for her, and feed her a little handful of grass.
And then, one day, I walked past the outdoor pen – and Azula was standing. Just like that. A little wobbly, but standing. A few days later, she saw me coming and took two or three wavering, uncertain steps in my direction. She was walking! I looked at her in disbelief that she was the same hen I had seen sit immobile in a cage day after day for weeks.
Progress was slow but certain, and eventually they brought another hen down to the hospital from her old coop to keep her company – another broiler named Zuko – and the two became exactly as hens should be: inquisitive, noisy, competitive… In short, companions, whose voices I loved to hear as I busied myself about whatever tasks I was doing at the hospital.
Azula and her broiler companions after recovery
Azula eventually was pronounced to be in complete recovery and was moved back to her permanent home, where she will live the rest of her life at Farm Sanctuary, safe in the eminently capable and infinitely compassionate hands of the wonderful staff who work there. I hope she does what would have been denied to her by the farmer that bred her: live a long and happy life.