California...Operation Chicken Airlift began with a phone call last
month from a California egg farmer to the Animal Place sanctuary in
Glass Valley.
Thousands of "laying hens" that had outlived their usefulness were
about to meet their demise, the farmer said. Was the animal group
interested in saving them from death by carbon monoxide?
Thus began a unique rescue effort that will send 1,200 white Leghorn
chickens on a $50,000, cross-country cargo flight this evening from
Northern California to upstate New York. On the East Coast, the chickens will be
ferried to sanctuaries where they will live outside of cages and
roam the land without the expectation of producing breakfast for
the egg-loving public.
"We're ready," said Jenny Brown of Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary
in New York, which will take in 200 of the birds. "We've
got perches and nest boxes for them, lots of grass, even a small
area where they can wander into woods. They will be able to spread
their wings and feel the sunshine for the first time in their
lives. It is a joy and honor and privilege for us to give these
chickens a second chance."
The airlift effort, which is being funded by an anonymous donor, is
unprecedented in its scale and complexity, said Marji Beach,
education director for the Grass Valley sanctuary.
Laying hens are bred for their ability to produce large eggs at an
extraordinary rate, experts said. But their productivity and the
size of their eggs typically level off after a couple of years,
after which they generally are sent to slaughterhouses or otherwise
destroyed.
Unlike broiler chickens, which are raised for meat, the laying hens
generally are too lean for human consumption, said Mitch Head, a
spokesman for United Egg Producers, a trade association that
represents egg farmers across the country.
"It's not economically viable to process them to get just a little
bit of meat," he said, although their carcasses sometimes are used
in pet food.
Grass Valley's Animal Place, which focuses on rescuing pigs, goats,
poultry and other farm creatures, began reaching out to California
egg farmers several years ago, "asking them to give us their hens
when they are about to slaughter them," Beach said. About 12,000
chickens have been placed, mostly in small batches, since then, she
said.
Beach declined to identify the farmer who, about a month ago,
offered up the most recent flock. Animal Place officials signed a
confidentiality agreement to protect the supplier's identity, she
said.
Animal Place located nine animal sanctuaries on the East Coast
willing to accommodate a total of 1,200 California chickens. About
1,800 more will live at the Northern California group's digs in
Vacaville and Grass Valley and will be available for adoption to
the public.
Getting the birds across the country has proved a complicated task.
Rounding up the chickens took two days and the effort of about 30
people, said Beach. Although the birds were in cages, a few
escaped. "But they were so weak that they weren't hard to catch,"
she said.
The chickens were taken to Vacaville and Grass Valley and released
into barns.
"They didn't know what to do at first," she said. Their beaks and
nails had been trimmed to prevent them from hurting one another in
close quarters.
"But every day we see them become more and more like chickens,
taking dust baths, making nests, scratching in the dirt," Beach
said.
After the group consulted with agricultural officials
in New York, staffers and volunteers conducted formal
"health checks" and ran blood tests to make sure the birds were medically fit
to fly.
Because commercial airlines do not transport adult chickens, the
group chartered a private cargo plane and found a donor willing to foot the
$50,000 bill. The birds are to be loaded in stackable crates in
Vacaville, trucked to Hayward Executive Airport and loaded on a
climate-controlled plane for a 6:45 p.m. departure today to Elmira,
N.Y. The trip is expected to take eight to nine hours.
Head, of the trade association, said he knew nothing about
Operation Chicken Airlift, but applauded the effort.
"It sounds like a win-win to me," he said. "If a farmer wants to
give them the chickens, and someone is willing to spend that kind
of money to take care of them, I'll stand on the sidelines and
cheer."
Also applauding was Jennifer Fearing of the Humane Society of
the United States, which sponsored a successful ballot measure
designed to improve conditions for California's 20 million
egg-laying hens.
"We wish these birds well, as we know they've endured suffering and
deprivation in tiny cages where they can barely move," Fearing
said.
Proposition 2, scheduled to take effect in January 2015, prohibits
the confinement of farm animals in a manner that does not allow
them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up and fully extend
their limbs.
Many farmers already have moved to increase cage sizes for laying
hens, Head said.
Most, he said, treat their chickens and other animals humanely and
abide by state and federal regulations for care.
Consumers love their supersized eggs, said Head. So, farmers are
merely answering the demands of the public when they kill hens that
no longer are producing an abundance of large eggs, he said.
This chicken and hundreds of her egg-laying colleagues will enjoy a
bug-hunting, dust-bathing retirement in New York state.
