My White Hen

This little white hen came to me when my friend, Caitlyn, picked her up off of the road after her box was thrown from a chicken truck.



Maybe the hen was thinking she had come into some bad luck as her box left the truck and she was flying through the air into the unknown oblivion. It must have been a strange feeling. But the daily life of factory farmed egg laying hens is where the real misfortune lies. I won't go into detail about the conditions; honestly what I imagine is probably not even as bad as it really is.

So Caitlyn asked if we would take her. I love a rescue. When we released her into our run she stumbled around like a drunken sailor. She must have never stretched her legs in her life. Her feet may have never before touched solid ground. I noticed that the tip of her beak was cut off. She was skittish and skinny on top of her wobbly legs.

My big fat content hens made sure she knew that she was not one of them - all crazy and untrustworthy as she must have seemed to them. "Girl, that bird is CRAZY." "Oh my! Maybe she hit her head." "And why's she so white?" "Do you thinks she's blind?" They chased her away from the best bits of kitchen scraps for a while. They can be so caddy.



After a few months she found her strength and her place among our hens. She can run like the wind when she needs to. And she lays one huge white egg every day. I know in the scheme of things her life has little meaning, but she is her own epoch novel of dispair, escape, mistrust, acceptance, and salvation. If only we had a rooster she could also find true love.