Animal sanctuary rescues 1,000 chickens from Iowa farm about to be killed

A California animal sanctuary rescued 1,000 hens from an Iowa egg farm that were about to be euthanized because of the failing economy; a disastrous byproduct of the pandemic.

According to Animal Place, the egg farm needed to scale down production, and therefore had planned to euthanize more than 100,000 chickens with carbon dioxide gas. The farm agreed to allow Animal Place to rescue 1,000 of the hens.

With two chartered private planes paid for by a donor and two sanctuary staff members who drove 30 hours to assist, the rescue of the chickens began:

“With funds running low, the farm had not been feeding the hens well for a week prior to the rescue. The farm employs a battery of cage systems with cages stacked four to five high and 10 hens per cage,” the sanctuary’s press release stated.

Volunteers carefully removed the birds from their cages and placed them into plastic crates for the plane trip. Sadly, there were numerous dead birds inside of the barns with live birds mixed in. And then from Fort Dodge, Iowa to Truckee, California, 1,000 hens traveled eight hours on their freedom.

Check out the video: (first time these chickens have ever felt the ground, grass or felt sunshine)

https://www.facebook.com/animalplace/videos/256905878998438/

The animals now live in Grass Valley at Animal Place and are being nursed back to health, getting their claws trimmed, eating, pecking and dusting just as they naturally want to do. They will be available for adoption to backyard flocks throughout the state. Any rescued hens that are too ill to be adopted, will remain at the sanctuary and be given life long care.

Pet Rescue Report would be amiss not to mention and thank the following other rescues who helped to save more of the chickens. Check them out: